While being one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world, it wasn’t a surprise that India, the largest democracy in the world recently surpassed the 300 million mark for the total number of mobile subscribers in the country. However, what’s even more remarkable are the stats for the month of September.
The country added almost 10 million new mobile subscribers last month, taking the total figure to 310.62 million. Now, if my maths knowledge serves me right, that’s about 4 new subscribers every single second. However, the penetration rate still lags at 27.5%, leaving out enough room for further growth.
The country’s market is large dominated by the GSM technology, contributing about 75.2% of the total subscriber base. 7.65 million new GSM subscribers were added last month while the CDMA base contributing 2.34 million.
Bharti Airtel continued to be the country’s largest cellular operator, adding 2.7 million subscribers out of the 9.9 million. Vodafone, which ranks third added 1.86 million subscribers. Airtel currently services 77.48 million subscribers in the country, while its closest rival, Reliance Communications serves about 56 million.
It would be interesting to take a look at the market share for the mobile handsets and the manufacturers that carry these new subscribers.
[Via Cellular-News, Photo: Sirensongs]