The Hindu Business Line : Mobiles overtake landlines

IT'S official now. The mobile subscribers' base in India has crossed that of fixed-line numbers to touch 44.5 million users as of October 2004. Close to1.5 million new subscribers were added in the month, helping the overall base to overtake the 43.9 million fixed line users.

Mr T.V. Ramachandran, Director-General, Cellular Operator's Association of India (COAI), said: "The mobile-fixed crossover coming within just nine years of the introduction of cellular mobile services in the country demonstrates the power of mobile telephony to drive India's teledensity and economic objectives. The GSM industry continues to maintain its dominance in the mobile market accounting for 78 per cent of India's total mobile subscribers and nearly 80 per cent of the subscriber additions in October 2004."

He added that the GSM-based cellular subscriber on its own would cross the fixed-line subscriber base by early 2005.

Currently, CDMA-based mobile operators account for 9.1 million subscribers.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the teledensity of the country has gone up to 8.24.

"India has recorded the highest annual mobile subscribers growth from the second quarter onwards. This unprecedented growth has been due to the fact that the mobile tariffs in India are the lowest," said a statement from TRAI.

Revenue per minute for mobile services was of the order of Rs 1.80 for the quarter ended June 2004, reported to be the lowest along with China.

According to a TRAI study, the average revenue per user for Indian operators is about $11 per month compared to $10 in China. However, US mobile operators are getting ARPUs of $57 per month.

The study reveals that the average mobile spending in India is 0.8 per cent of the GDP compared to 2.5 per cent in China. "With the decline in tariffs and improvement in services, it is expected the mobile spending in the country would go up," it said.

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