348 million Indians to hold a mobile by 2010
11 Sep 2006
The latest report by the Dublin-based Research and Markets reveals that all of the major equipment providers and handset manufacturers have targeted India as a high priority for increasing their worldwide presence for years to come. TDG's latest report, India Mobile Market: The Next Land Run for Mobile Vendors? provides a summary of the recent growth of this sector and predicts that India will be the number two mobile subscriber market in the world by 2010.
Key findings from this report include:
- All inhabited areas (and hence the entire population) of India should be covered by mobile networks by the end of 2009, despite only 45-50% coverage today.
- The number of total mobile subscribers is expected to increase from just over 100 million today to over 348 million by year-end 2010.
- Despite what the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India terms a "quality of service crisis", fierce price wars among India mobile operators have caused near exponential growth in mobile subscribers since 2003.