Indian Mobile Market picture

India is the second fastest growing mobile market after China. Here is some quick facts;

- 450 million subscribers. Expected to grow to 750 million subscribers by 2012.

- Projected to exceed revenue of $30 billion by 2013. CAGR of 12.5%

- Pre-paid users accounted for 93% of all mobile connections.

- Players include Bharti-Airtel, Reliance, Tata, BSNL, Idea (Birla), MTS, Vodafone, Aircel etc.

- As per Aug 2009 statistics, BhartiAirtel  leads with about 24% market share followed by Reliance with 18.56%. Vodafone is closely behind with about 18% share followed by BSNL and Idea with 11% each. 

-  New players entering the market include Datacom (JV between Videocon and Mahendra Nahata), Telenor, Swan Telecom etc.

- Both CDMA and GSM services are offered (predominantly GSM).

- Call rates are as low as 30 Paisa per minute (One has to pay 1 Rs per day for this offer)

Call rates continue to drop due to stiff competition. Massive 3G roll-outs will be begin in 2010.

Foreign investors include Etisalat (45% stake in Swan), Russian player Sistema JSFC (74% in Shyam), NTT Docomo (12% in Tata), Batelco (12% in Stel), and Telenor (67% in Unitech)

Rajesh Kumar