Over 500 million Indians own telephones

INDIA-TELEPHONE

New Delhi, Nov 4 (PTI) India's telecom subscriber base
has crossed the 500 million-mark and the growth milestone
has been achieved 15 months ahead of target.

The country had targeted reaching this number by end of
2010, but actually crossed this mark in September this year.
The number of telephone subscribers in India increased to
509.03 million at the end of September from 494.07 million in
August, registering a growth rate of 3.03 per cent. The set
target of 500 million telephones by the end of 2010 has been
achieved by September 2009, Telecom Regulatory Authority of
India (TRAI) said Wednesday.
This takes the tele-density to 43.50 per cent in the
country whose population stands at near 1.20 billion. Wireless
Tele-density stands at 40.31. Mobile operators added 15.1
million users in August.
India is the second-biggest market for wireless services,
lagging only China which has more than 600 million users, and
is the fastest-growing market in the world.
Mobile opearators led by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar
and Tata Teleservices wooing the customers with innovative
tariff packages where call rates are already ruling at the
rock bottom, which is the main driver of the booming market.
New tariff plans such as per-second billing introduced by
most of the operators are likely to see huge subscriber
addition, said analysts. PTI ANA
DDC


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