India is going through a telecom revolution, especially in the wireless telephony segment. The adoption of mobile telephony remains unparalled in scope, as users from diverse segments increasingly choose to exercise the option of personal mobility. On an average the user base has been adding 4-5 million subscribers per month.
The Mobile subscriber base is growing at a scorching pace in India and it is the “fastest growing mobile market in the world”. The Wireless subscribers have reached to 261.07 million as on 31st March 2008. The penetration level of mobile services is still below 30% in India, hence there is a huge potential for growth in this segment. But the scenario is different in the other countries since their markets are already saturated. This is the reason why global telecom giants are looking towards us. In India, the major players in the market are Bharti-Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone, BSNL, Idea Cellular & Tata teleservices. Apart from them there are other small players like Aircel, Spice, BPL,MTNL, HFCL, Shyam Telelink to name a few. The market share currently enjoyed by the operators is represented in the below figures.
Operator-wise Market Share of GSM Operator-wise Market Share of CDMA service providers as on 31st March 2008 service providers on 31st March 2008
The success of the market can be gauged from the fact that mobile user base has surpassed the PC user base in India and very soon the Indian market will have more mobile users than TV viewers. The growing intensity of competition has led to more services for the end user at lower prices. This has had an effect of stimulating demand and thus increasing the category adoption rate. As more users have been added to the subscriber base, it has led to a further downward pressure on operator costs. This has led to further cost benefits to the end user, fuelling further