Indian telecom vibrates to the call of 200 million mobile callers

New Delhi: India''s mobile market, the fastest growing in the world, saw a virtual ballooning of its subscriber base, with the number of subscribers crossing the 200-million mark in August 2007.

According to the latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), 8.31 million Indians became mobile subscribers, adding up GSM, CDMA and wireless in local loop (WLL fixed or WLL (F) in August 2007.

The total now touches 201.29 million users, according to TRAI, which also revealed that the teledensity has now touched 21.20 per cent, up from 20.52 per cent in July 2007.

The government had set the 200 million mark as a target for the end of the year. India is hence, four months ahead of its telecom numbers. The 100-million mark was crossed a little over a year ago, in May 2006.

The target of 250 million phones is now starting to appear on the horizon. By the end of August, India had a total of 241.02 million telephone subscribers, as against 232.87 million at the end of July.

However, wireline connections, which are better known as fixed line phones totalled 39.73 million subscribers at the end of August, which is a marginal decline of 0.16 million users during the month.

Total broadband connections, comprising connections with a speed greater than or equal to 256 kbps also increased by 0.09 million in August to reach 2.56 million.

According to data made public by the Cellular Operators Association of India, the representative body for GSM operators, India''s GSM subscriber base has totalled 147.7 million at the end of August, excluding figures from Reliance Telecom which is yet to announce its subscriber figures.

That would mean that the cumulative CDMA and WLL (F) subscribers in the country stood at about 53.59 million at the end of August.

Largest amongst the wireless operators, Bharti Airtel added 2.05 million users in August, growing its subscriber base to 46.8 million, followed by Vodafone Essar, which added 1.67 million subscribers in August, growing its base to 34.11 million users.