Mobile user base up 17.5mn in 2003

In 2003, 17.5 million new users were added to the mobile subscriber base, which saw a growth of 170 per cent. The number of subscribers went up from 10.4 million at the end of 2002 to 28.20 million in December 2003.

This was largely on account of the huge growth in the limited mobility market, which saw an addition of 6 million new subscribers last year.

Last year, the growth in mobile subscribers was more than thrice the increase recorded in 2002. The average monthly addition of 1.5 million new users in 2003 was about 14 times higher than the average monthly growth in mobile subscriptions in the preceding eight years.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the primary reason for the unprecedented growth was a 50 per cent decline in tariffs over the previous year. At present, mobile telephony tariffs are just 5 per cent of the rate that prevailed in 1995, making it the lowest in the world.

The bundling of handsets and connections and attractive pre-paid packages offered by many mobile operators have also attracted a lot of first-time telephone users.

Fixed-line operators like Mahangar Telephone Nigam Ltd and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd have, in fact, recorded a decline in their subscriber base because of the 'churn' in the telephony market.

In 2003, the biggest gainer was Reliance Infocomm, which saw its subscriber base shoot up from just over 500,000 users in 2002 to over 6.2 million at the end of December 2003. This phenomenal growth has catapulted it into the top slot, with a marketshare of 21.9 per cent.

Bharti, which had held the top slot till it was unseated by Reliance, saw its subscriber base move up to 5.5 million, translating into a marketshare of 19 per cent.

Bharti, however, is still the largest operator in the GSM (global system for mobiles) category. BSNL, which launched its services in October 2002, also gained significantly. It moved from 843,000 subscribers to 4.7 million.

Delhi and Mumbai continued to be the biggest markets for mobile telephony, with 2.9 million and 2.5 million subscribers, respectively. The metros accounted for 7 million subscribers. However, the Circle A states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have a combined base of 8 million subscribers, which is more than all the metros combined.

December 2003 saw an addition of 1.8 million new mobile users, of which 1.2 million went to the GSM operators. Interestingly, operators using CDMA (code division multiple access) technology, have stopped reporting their limited mobility numbers and have replaced it with "digital mobile" numbers, since it includes even those limited mobility subscribers who migrated to full mobility after the unified licence regime came into force.