Mobile penetration in India reached 74% 2011 with room for further growth accroding to a recent Research and Markets n Report entitled "India - Mobile Communications - Market Overview, Technologies and Forecasts."
From a humble start, growth in India's mobile sector rapidly picked up pace and developed a sustained momentum, aided by higher subscriber volumes, lower tariffs and falling handset prices. Home to a clutch of global operators working with local companies, India had around 900 million mobile subscribers (including both GSM and CDMA services) at the start of 2012; the market was continuing to grow at an annual rate of around 40%.
While ARPU has been steadily declining as competing operators offer cheaper tariffs the usage levels have remained reasonably high thus slowing the decline in revenues. There had been a major push in recent years to take mobile services into the poorer and rural areas of the country, a move that was weighing down on ARPU. The arrival of two more operators also added to the heat in the marketplace as they launched networks in late 2009.
In 2010 the long-awaited 3G auctions finally took place. In 2010/2011 the 3G networks were being rolled out and services delivered to customers. But things went sour for the mobile industry in particular when the unfolding scandal over the awarding of 2G licences in 2008 took centre stage at the beginning of 2012.
Companies covered in this report include: Aircel/Dishnet, Bharti Airtel, Loop Mobile (BPL Mobile), Quadrant (HFCL), Idea/Spice, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone Essar, Uninor (Unitech), Videocon, S Tel, Bharti Telenet, Reliance Infocomm, Tata Teleservices, Sistema (Shyam Telelink), Swan Telecom, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), Data Access, Hughes Telecom, Videocon, SingTel.
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/bb61214d/india_mobile_com
