The number of subscribers crossed 500 million. The wirline subscribers continue to drop, as almost everyone is jumping on the wireless bandwagon. The subscriber base stood at 509 million, with 471 million wireless subscribers and 37 million odd wireline subscribers. Should wireline services be delegated to second place? Or should government try even harder to work on it? Atleast the market forces have spoken out loud for the death of wireline services. Let's see at what stable figure it settles.
The overall teledensity ( which is number of phones per hundred persons) reached a overall high of 43.50. This when it reached double digit only towards the end of September 2005. The figures mentioned in the telecom policy of 1999 have been fulfilled with a year to spare. What a success story!
Tata (26.7%), Bharti(16.8%) & Reliance(13.4%) had the lion's share of 15 million additions this month.
The rural density figure stood at 16.5(march, 2009) and the urban teledensity at 88.5(march 2009). This shows that companies have no option but to go to rural areas in search of the numbers- at least to the thickly populated rural areas. The size of India may put off some operators but it's high population density(393persons/ sq km) should see it through.
The urban centers would most probably see the shift towards VAS, with data services making up for the lost revenue. But what about rural areas? Will they also see VAS? Or services like GPRS, 3G, Mobile banking?? Who knows? The future is too much in flux, especially in the case of Indian telecom market!
No comments:
Post a Comment