60% of mobile users in rural India by ’12: E&Y

 Rural India too prefers mobile phones over landlines. Of the next 250 million Indian wireless users, approximately 100 million (40%) are likely to be from rural areas, and by 2012, rural users will account for over 60% of the total telecom subscriber base, according to a report jointly released by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Ernst & Young.
    As per Trai figures, subscriber additions in rural areas exceeded additions in the metros. In the first nine months of 2008, the four metros together added 10.3 million subscribers, while the rural areas added over 11.3 million. Mobile phones in rural India also grew by close to 13.72% to reach 70.83 million in the quarter-ending June 2008. This is expected to continue till 2012, according to the CII and Ernst and Young analysis. “The majority of new wireless subscribers will emerge from circle B and circle C,” said Ernst & Young telecom analyst, Prashant Singhal.
    While the overall teledensity in India is over 30%, in rural areas the figure languishes in single digits. CII predicts the number of subscriber addition in rural areas to exceed the additions in metros by 2012 with about 120 million new users expected to adopt wireless telephony in rural areas compared to about 62 million in the metros.
    With over 300 million mobile subscribers, India is the second largest market, after China, in terms of subscribers. By 2012, the total telecom subscriber base is expected to shoot up to include about 700 million subscribers, of which about 650 million will be wireless users.

India's mobile telephony segment to offer major scope for growth: ITU

According to the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a leading UN
agency for information and communication technology issues, India's current mobile telephone
penetration rate of about 20 per cent and market liberalisation policies are some of the factors that may offer "great potential" for growth of telecom companies.
Further, according to ITU, while India had about 296 million mobile subscribers by end-July 2008, the world's second-most populous nation offers major scope for growth in terms of numbers. Also, market liberalisation in India has contributed majorly in spreading mobile telephony driven by increasing competitiveness and price reductions.
India's mobile telephony operators now compete for low-income customers and the Average-Revenue-Per-User in India has touched almost US$ 7, one of the lowest in the world, the data revealed.
The report also stated that developing countries like India and China are witnessing an upsurge in the number of mobile phone subscribers which may lead to growth in the numbers to four billion by the end of the year worldwide. The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China – incidentally China, the world's largest mobile market, too has surpassed the 600 million subscriber mark by mid-2008) economies are expected to account for over 1.3 billion mobile subscribers by the end of 2008, owing to increasing impact in terms of population, resources and global gross domestic product (GDP) share.