Telecom industry continues growth trajectory
22 Jan 2009
The Indian telecom industry continues to grow at a steady pace according to the Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
TRAI said in a press release that the industry added 10.66 million new connections in the month of December 2008. This was up over the 10.18 million connections added in November 2008. (See: Comparison table of subscriber base during corresponding periods of 2007 and 2008 is shown below)
The total number of connections has touched 384.79 million at the end of December 2008 as against 374.13 million registered at the end of November 2008. This growth takes the tele-density to 33.23 per cent at the end of December 2008 as against 32.34 per cent in November 2008.
The total wireless subscribers including GSM, CDMA, & WLL(F) reached 346.89 million at the end of December 2008 with a total of 10.81 million subscribers during the same month. During November 2008, 10.35 million wireless subscribers had been added.
The wireline segment however, saw a marginal decline from 38.05 million subscribers in November 2008 to 37.09 million in December 2008.
The total broadband subscribers base increased to 5.45 million in December as against 5.28 million a month before, a registering a growth of 3.21 per cent.