Indian mobiles overtake land lines
October 26, 2004
New Delhi - Cellphone users have outstripped traditional landline connections in India, according to the industry, marking a major milestone for the rapidly changing country.
A survey conducted by India's leading telecommunications magazine, Voice and Data, found 45 million people owned cellphones in India, compared with 44 million who had land lines.
"It took land line phone subscriptions 50 years to get to the 40 million mark, while mobile phones have touched it in nine years and four months," said the magazine's senior assistant editor, Pravin Prashant.
"Mobile phones have created a complete culture change in communication."
"Furthermore, it does not appear that the mobile phone juggernaut will slow down."
The survey predicted that at least 110 million new cellphone subscribers would be added in India during the next three years.
According to investment bank Morgan Stanley, India's cellular market is expected to grow at a compound average rate of 40 percent until 2007.
The country's emergence as one of the fastest-growing cellphone markets comes despite the fact that a large number of India's billion-plus population are out of range of a cellular network.
Industry players, who say the boom is beyond their most optimistic predictions, attribute the surge to the fact that India lags far behind the rest of the world in fixed-line telephony. Introducing cellular networks, they say, is cheaper and faster than stringing up telephone wires.
With the proliferation of cellphones, India's teledensity has shot up to eight phones per 100 people from less than three five years ago. But it is still well below the global average of 15.
"One can get a cellphone up and running in minutes, whereas it can take anything from two days to a week to get a land line phone. In rural India it may take even longer," said Viraj Chouhan, a senior manager at India's largest private telecoms group, Bharti.
India's cellphone market is adding nearly 1.8 million customers a month, while in China new subscriptions are rising by nearly 5 million a month.
The world now has 1.5 billion cellphone subscribers.
Industry experts say lower tariffs have also spurred the rapid growth in a country where the average Indian earns just $1.60 (about R10) a day.
"After the national telecom policy came into force in 1999, call charges dropped from 16 rupees [R2.16] a minute to less than a rupee in 2004," said Prashant.
"India is one of the lowest cellphone tariff countries in the world and this has helped register high growth rates."
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