The Hindu Business Line : 5 m new mobile subscribers in March

Riding on the success of the lifetime validity prepaid scheme and the One India tariffs, mobile subscription growth has gone through the roof, with more than five million new subscribers in March.

While the GSM-based cellular operators added close to four million new users, the CDMA-based operators added over one million mobile subscribers during the month. This takes the total mobile user base in the country to nearly 90 million.

"We are delighted to report a subscriber growth of 3.9 million during March '06 - the highest subscriber additions since the inception of service. The cumulative all India GSM subscriber base has now grown to 69.06 million in March 2006, up from 65.18 million in February 2006, a growth of 5.95 per cent for the month under review," said Mr T. V. Ramachandran, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

Target within reach

"The growth in March was despite the many constraints faced by the CDMA operators including delays in provision of points of interconnection, lack of spectrum, high taxes and levies and delayed SACFA clearances. We expect subscriber additions in the coming months to be more, if adequate spectrum is released to our members and there is no delay in SACFA Clearance and provision of points of interconnection. The growth in the last few months shows that the achievement of the Government's target of 250 million telephones by 2007 is possible, and we will make full efforts for the achievement of the target," said Mr S. C. Khanna, Secretary General, Association of Unified Services Providers of India.

The largest mobile operator continues to be Bharti with 19.6 million subscribers, followed by Reliance Communications Venture Ltd with 17.4 million mobile users. State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has 17.2 million subscribers and is third in the race at the end of March.

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