India’s mobile users’ base hits 40.6 million, is there much left to the Indian high tech market?
Surinder Khanna, Special Correspondent
September 10, 2004 

High tech market of India may be maturing rapidly in India and China and not much of the middle and hard working class with dispensable cash is left out. For example those who did not take the mobile phone yet, may not be in a position or have need to take the same. Maturity of a market is marked by price deflation and that has started. For the first time mobile phone usage rates are coming down. However in some quarters, the high tech boom in India has just started and has a long way to go.

India's mobile telephone subscribers'' base continued to expand at a dazzling pace in August, with the total number of users touching 40.6 million, according to figures released Wednesday. The number of Global Standard for Mobile communication (GSM) service users registered a jump of 4.62 percent to touch 32.02 million, said the Cellular Operators'' Association of India (COAI). Service providers of cellular phones based on cheaper Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology added 251,403 new customers in August, taking their total number of subscribers to 8.6 million. According to figures issued by COAI, Bharti Tele-Ventures had the largest share of the domestic GSM phone market with 8.29 million customers, accounting for 25.88 percent of the total customer base. Bharti was followed by state-run telecom giant Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), which had 6.87 million customers, accounting for 21.46 percent of the total market. "At this level, GSM continues to hold 79 percent of the total mobile market and the GSM additions in August 2004 represent 85 percent of all new additions," said T.V. Ramachandran, director general of COAI. "The trend is very clearly in line with international trends, where GSM continues to be the predominant choice of customers globally." India's mobile phone market has grown rapidly in the last few years on the back of spiralling income levels and falling phone tariffs and handset prices, making it one of the fastest growing markets globally.