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INDIA: India boasts some 430 million mobile phone users and that number is still growing despite the global slowdown.
A huge untapped market beckons in the rural areas, which currently accounts for only a third of total mobile users in India. If the government's plans to connect every village to a broadband network are fully implemented, this market could see an explosive growth.
Like many countries around the world, India is still sorting out the mess from the global slowdown. But one sector appears to have escaped unscathed and that is the telecom sector.
In fact, telecom service providers added a record 15.4 million wireless users in January this year – the biggest monthly growth ever. By end-January, 34.5 per cent of India's population own a telephone.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Telecom, said: "For the first time, India has emerged as a dominant player in one field and that is telecommunication. I have no doubt that going forward in the next five to seven years, India would cross several more 100 million customers."
The future of the telecom growth in India is said to lie in its rural areas. With only 9 per cent of people in rural India owning a telephone, compared to 66 per cent in the cities, this is a market waiting to be tapped.
The communications ministry will soon invite bids to set up over 7,000 telecom towers in rural areas. The ministry will also auction third-generation or 3G wireless radio spectrum by the end of this year.
A. Raja, Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, said: "At the telecom side, we already brought in healthy competition. More operators were permitted as per the TRAI recommendations.
"I do believe once the new operators start their operations, the tariff will drastically come down and the telecommunication facility will be available to persons living in the lowest edge of the social strata."
Third-generation services are being seen as the next growth driver for telecom firms in India.
Analysts said the next decade is going to focus on what a phone can do. Internet connection through the phone will allow visual chatting and TV shows on mobile.
The government has set a target of increasing rural teledensity to 40 per cent over the next five years, linking every village to a broadband network in the next three years.
- CNA/so
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