According to the latest forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media, there will be five hundred million mobile subscriptions in India by the end of September 2010.
Whilst it took 13 years for India to gain its first 250 million mobile subscriptions, Informa forecasts that the country’s second 250 million subscribers will be added over a 30-month period thanks to such factors as the increased competition in India’s mobile market, low tariffs and cheap handsets.
“The bottom line is with a penetration rate of 26%, India is a hugely attractive investment destination, and will continue to be so for many years. Indeed, our forecasts suggest that the active subscription rate will remain well below 50% until 2010,” says Informa Principal Analyst, Nick Jotischky.
Informa’s forecasts also suggest that India will soon enter a second phase of growth. The Indian regulator is set to award 3G licences to India’s largest operators in 2009, a move that suggests a rapid take-up of data services. Informa predicts there will be 7.5 million W-CDMA connections by the end of 2010, a figure that will leap to over 120 million by the end of 2013.