The Hindu Business Line : 2006, best ever year for GSM industry

With the GSM subscriber base touching 105.4 million at the end of December 2006, the calendar year (2006) proved to be the best-ever for the GSM industry in terms of subscriber growth. The GSM industry added 4.6 million subscribers in December 2006.

The subscriber additions for the entire calendar year were far higher at 47 million as compared to just 21 million additions for the year ending December 2005, which is a jump of 124 per cent.

Mr T.V. Ramachandran, Director General of Cellular Operators Association of India, said that the calendar year, January 2006 to December 2006, proved to be a landmark year for the GSM industry. The GSM subscriber base almost doubled from 58.5 million as on December 2005 to 105.4 million as on December 2006.

Exceeding expectations

Mr Ramachandran said that the subscriber additions were far above expectation and was the result of a concerted effort by the GSM industry to accelerate its growth trajectory in a bid to reach the Government target of 470 million mobile subscribers by 2010.

Among all circles, Category C circles witnessed the highest rate of growth at 6.1 per cent, followed by Category B circles at 5.8 per cent. Within the Category C circles, the highest growth was recorded by Assam (9.2 per cent) followed by Orissa at (7.2 per cent).

Within the Category B circles, Haryana recorded the highest growth at 9.1 per cent, followed by Rajasthan at 8.3 per cent. Category A circles also witnessed a growth of 3.8 per cent in December 2006. Gujarat recorded the highest growth of 4.3 per cent followed by Tamil Nadu at 3.9 per cent

The Metro subscribers also grew by 3 per cent over the previous month. Kolkata as well as Chennai recorded the highest growth at 4 per cent

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