India’s subscriber base to grow to 533 million in 2010 (India)Growth in India’s mobile sector, from a humble start in the mid-1990s, has really picked up pace in recent years, aided by higher subscriber volumes, lower tariffs and falling handset prices. Home to a clutch of global operators working with local companies, India had almost 250 million mobile subscribers (including GSM and CDMA services) in early 2008. And the market was growing at an annual rate of around 60%. While the ARPU has been steadily declining as competing operators offer cheaper tariffs the usage levels have been high thus slowing the decline in ARPU. By 2008 there was a major push to take mobile services into the poorer and rural areas of the country.
India added 6.42 million GSM mobile subscribers in July, total reaches 218.9 million. the number of mobile susbscribers in India has reached nearly 250 million,teledensity above 25%.
India adds about 8-9 million new subscribers per month. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) says that there were 286.86 million wireless users in India at the end of June, up 55 % from a year earlier.
Bharti Airtel led the signings in June with 2.55 million new customers. The company had 69.4 million mobile users at end-June. Reliance Communications added 1.74 million wireless users to have 50.79 million subscribers begs no. 2 position. Follwing it Vodafone Essar, added 1.73 million mobile customers in June, taking its total to 49.2 million.
Notable highlights of the 3Q08 India Mobile Forecast include:
- It is expected the subscriber base in India to increase from 332 million in 2008 to 533 million in 2010. This will make India the fastest growing wireless market in the world.
- The four major operators in the country will continue to have similar market share breakdowns over the next several years. Bharti-Airtel, Reliance, Vodafone-Essar, and BSNL will continue to serve approximately 24.5%, 20.7%, 17% and 12.3% respectively of total subscribers in 2010.
- Average margins in the industry are forecasted to be 38.5% in 2010. Bharti-Airtel and Reliance will have similar EBITDA margins at around 41%. The downward EBITDA margin are forecasted because of the expected 3G spectrum auction and the DOT’s proposal to hike annual spectrum charges by -100bps for all spectrum slabs up to 8.2Mhz, and by -200bps hike for 10Mhz and above. The proposed hike in annual spectrum fees will likely lower earnings growth at Bharti and Reliance.
