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India adds 6.42 million GSM mobile subscribers in July, total reaches 218.9 million (India)

  • August 14th, 2008
  • 6:38 am

India has added 6.42 million GSM mobile subscribers in the month of July, report ET, accelerating the pace of subscriber growth from the previous month. Mobile phones costing as low as $15 and call rates as low as 1 US cent a minute has made India, the world’s second-largest mobile market after China.

The total GSM subscribers in India at the end of July was 218.9 million.

The number of GSM subscribers added by following operators in the Month of July are:

  • Bharti Airtel added 2.69 million subscribers in July, total 72.1 million subscribers
  • Vodafone Essar added 1.76 million subscribers, total 50.95 million subscribers
  • Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd added 553,219 subscribers, total 37.92 million subscribers
  • Idea Cellular added 1.05 million subscribers, total 28.2 million subscribers

   

Idea Cellular to offer new Idea on Spice licence (India)

  • August 8th, 2008
  • 9:41 am

Idea Cellular has got the approval from the Department of Communication (DoT) for scheme restructure under the telecom licences owned by Spice Communications to be transferred to a seperate legal entity, reports Telegraph, India.

This plan is deviced to move out of a dicey situation arising from it’s recent acquisition of a majority stake in Spice Communications, which holds the licences for Punjab and Karnataka circles.

Idea Cellular Q1′08 profit falls by 14.7% (India)

  • July 25th, 2008
  • 3:17 pm

Idea Cellular has reported a 14.7% fall in first quarter net profit, hit by foreign exchange losses and the expiry of a 2% concession in licence fees for seven service areas. In the three months ended 30 June 2008 profit after tax wasUSD55.1 million (INR2.63 billion ), compared to INR3.09 billion a year earlier. Total revenues rose to INR21.78 billion from INR14.78 billion while EBITDA climbed from INR5.14 billion to INR7.2 billion. During the quarter Idea added 3.19 million new subscribers to its base to take the total to 27.19 million.

   

‘NetSetter’ data card launched by Idea Celllular

  • July 22nd, 2008
  • 8:48 am

Idea Cellular has launched a data card, NetSetter which will enable the both the prepaid and postpaid customers to access wireless internet on the go.

Equipped with EDGE technology, the card is compatible with laptop, desktop and also offers a plug and play option without requiring CD installation.

The card helps user to access the Internet facility from any remote locations and to send SMS along with group messaging, said the company.

India adds 6-mn GSM mobile phone users in Feb (India)

  • March 12th, 2008
  • 1:12 pm

India added six million GSM mobile subscribers in February to reach 184.67 million, industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said on Monday.

This, however, excludes the number of users added by Reliance Communications, which is mainly a CDMA major, a rival technology to GSM.

Bharti Airtel, India’s leading mobile phone service firm, added 2.25 million subscribers, taking its total base to 59.67 million and market share to 32.31 per cent.

Vodafone-Essar, promoted by British telecom giant Vodafone, registered 42.55 million subscribers by adding 1.41 million new users in February against the preceding month’s 1.28 million.

Aditya-Birla Group’s Idea Cellular added 918,871 users last month, and as of February 29 had a total customer base of 22.87 million.

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) added 824,284 new users taking its total subscriber base to 34.57 million and a market share of 18.72 per cent, COAI said.

India is the world’s fastest growing mobile phone market with the lowest call tariffs of below two US cents. The market has emerged as the cynosure of global telecom giants. The latest to make a foray is the Richard Branson-promoted Virgin Mobile, which announced it entry into the Indian market last week in partnership with Mumbai-based Tata Teleservices.

The Indian government has set a target of 500 million users by 2010; half of this, 250 million, was reached last year.

   

Indian mobile firms add 5.95 mln GSM users in Aug (India)

  • September 13th, 2007
  • 3:28 pm

Indian GSM mobile phone service providers signed up 5.95 million customers in August, taking their user base to 147.7 million in the world’s fastest-growing cellular market, an industry body said on Thursday.

Sector leader Bharti Airtel Ltd signed 2.1 million customers in August, lifting its user base to 46.8 million, the Cellular Operators’ Association of India said in a statement.

Vodafone Essar Ltd, in which Britain’s Vodafone owns a controlling stake, added 1.7 million users to take its subscriber base of 34.1 million, said the association, which represents nine carriers offering wireless services based on the dominant GSM platform.

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. added 725,392 users in August, taking its user base to 29.7 million.

Idea Cellular gained 866,629 subscribers in August, lifting its user base to 17.9 million.

Reliance Communications had 33.3 million subscribers at end-July to be India’s second-largest mobile services provider, but a majority of its users are on the CDMA platform. The company is yet to announce its August numbers.

Including CDMA operators, India added about 28 million wireless users in four months to July, driven by call rates as low as one U.S. cent a minute and expansions into small towns and rural areas.

Wireless phone subscribers at end-July were 64 percent higher than a year earlier, India’s telecom regulator said last month.

   

 

 

Mobile Growth Blooms in India

  • August 6th, 2007
  • 8:19 am

India’s service providers added a total of 19.06 million new mobile subscribers in the second quarter, taking the country’s total telecom base to 225.21 million.

That growth fueled strong double-digit revenue increases for five of India’s private operators (financials haven’t been released for state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) ).
Profits soared at triple-digit rates, up 100 percent year on year at Bharti Airtel Ltd. (Mumbai: BHARTIARTL - message board), 138 percent at Reliance Communications Ltd. , and 259 percent at IDEA Cellular Ltd. (See Bharti Profits Continue to Climb, Reliance Profit Soars, and IDEA Cellular Reports Q1.)

A recent report from Gartner Inc. projects Indian mobile revenues will climb at a compound annual growth rate of 18.4 percent to 2011, creating a $25.6 billion market. But it notes that as operators continue to expand into rural areas where the market remains untapped, they will see their monthly average revenue per user fall — from $82.10 last year to $59.50 by 2011.

That was borne out during the second quarter, with ARPU falling among the top operators, except for Reliance Communications, where it remained flat.

   
 

Yahoo signs mobile deals with Apac operators (Asia)

  • June 23rd, 2007
  • 12:25 pm

Yahoo has signed partnership agreements with six mobile operators across Asia for the distribution of Yahoo’s mobile search service, Yahoo onesearch, which launched in Asia in May this year.

The six mobile operators are Globe Telecom (Philippines), Idea Cellular (India), LG Telecom (Korea), Maxis Communications (Malaysia), PT Telekomunikasi Selular ‘Telkomsel’ (Indonesia) and Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan).

By distributing Yahoo onesearch, these operators will enable people to search for results on their mobile devices. Yahoo onesearch gives consumers access to news, web images, financial information, weather conditions, Flickr and web and mobile sites, and enables navigation to other web sites.

Yahoo onesearch is now available in 14 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Italy, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam) and will soon be available in South Korea and Taiwan.

   

Rural India Mobile Base Stations Running on Biofuel

  • June 17th, 2007
  • 2:30 pm

Leading Indian mobile firms Idea Cellular, Ericsson (News - Alert) and the GSM Association’s Development Fund revealed that four of the mobile base stations in the state of Maharashtra in India powered by locally produced biofuels have become operational.

Sanjeev Aga, managing director, IDEA Cellular, said: “The use of biofuels is helping us to bring the social and economical benefits that access to communication bring to rural communities in India.”
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Dependency on mobile phones keeps increasing day-by-day, and GSM operators expand their coverage widely even in rural areas. Lack of connectivity to the power and exploding mobile phone demand in rural India is forcing mobile operators to devise solutions to power new basestations.
 
Tom Phillips, chief government and regulatory affairs officer of the GSMA, the global trade association for mobile operators, said, “Exploring alternative power solutions, such as biofuels, is key to the development of cost-effective ways to extend mobile networks to the 20% of the world’s population that don’t have coverage today.”
 
The four mobile base stations will assess different sources of biofuel.
 
Mats Granryd, president of Ericsson India, said in a statement, “Solutions to solve the power challenges associated with expanding rural coverage will help operators reach people beyond the electricity grid. We are pleased to pioneer biofuel into the telecom industry.”

   
 

Indian carriers discussing alliance, says source

  • May 29th, 2007
  • 6:51 am

Spice Telecom, Idea Cellular and Reliance Telecom are in talks for forging an “operational alliance with a pan-India footprint,” an industry source said.

“Discussions are on for an operational alliance with regard to network sharing, roaming, international arrangements and handset bundling,” the source said.

But the source said “the talks are not related to any merger, but relate to a tie-up for operational requirements.”

Idea Cellular managing director Sanjeev Aga however said he was not aware of any such development. Reliance Telecom refused to comment on the issue.

Analysts, however, share the view that the operational alliance was a logical move as all three companies do not have a pan-India presence.

Idea currently has operations in 11 circles, while Reliance Telecom has GSM operations in eight telecom circles in the eastern part of the country.

Analysts say if the operational tie-up were to take place, the three companies will have a presence in 19 of the 23 telecom circles in India.