Growth of telecom sector in India

The telecommunication industry is growing at a neck break speed with leading players lapping up mobile subscribers by millions. The country's telecommunication market is the 4th largest in the world in terms of wireless subscribers and 5th largest in terms of total telecom subscribers Indian Telecom sector is growing at an unprecedented pace, and subscribers base is growing at a scorching rate of around 5 million per month. Gone are the days were in people use to wait years and month together for a telephone connection. The liberalized norms adopted by TRAI encouraged many private and foreign companies to enter in to telecom sector. There is popular saying in India,” We may find villages in India where there is no drinking water but not with coke & Pepsi”. Today the same popular saying is likely to get applicable to cellular services, as the service providers are moving towards rural areas under ‘Bharat Nirman Program’. Almost 20,000 villages have been provided with a telephone by the end of the year.

Overall mobile subscribers in India have increased from 165.11 million in March 2007 to 771.18 million January 2011. As a result, mobile tele-density jumped from 14.61% to 64.74%. The second largest mobile telecommunication services market in the world behind China, Indian wireless telecom sector is benefiting from lowest call rates, large market base due to bigger population, considerably sizable untapped market and robust economic growth of the country. The day has come where in we may not send a post for one rupee, but we can make a telephone call for one rupee to any place with in India. In recent years, while the telecom density has risen sharply, India continues to lag behind countries like Brazil and China. Thought the telecom density is much less when compared with advanced countries, the figures 64.74% (2011) 23.44% (2008) 17.45% (2007) indicates a good sign of progress after reforms.