India

India has become the worlds 2nd largest mobile market after China with 346.9 million mobile subscribers in 2008.

With nearly 1.2 billion inhabitants and one of the most competitive telecom market globally, India is and will remain, one of the worlds most dynamic and promising telecom markets for the next five years. Teledensity has increased close to five-fold in the last five years and service tariffs have gone down substantially so much so that India currently has some of the lowest tariff rates in the world HOT TELECOMs president Isabelle Paradis said.

Mobiles now account for over 90% of total telephones connections in India, after surpassing the number of fixed lines for the first time in 2004. The sector grew by an average rate of 65.5% in the last 5 years to reach 346.9 million subscribers (including GSM, CDMA and WLL) at the end of 2008. India surpassed the US for the first time (in terms of mobile subscribers) in April 2008 and became the worlds second largest mobile market after China. Furthermore, in June 2009, India surpassed China as the worlds second largest CDMA market, next only to the US.

Mobile growth is forecasted to remain in the double digits until the end of the 2012, with an average growth rate of 18.5% over the next 5 years. At the end of the forecasted period, mobile subscribers should have reached 798.2 million and a penetration rate of 62.4%. Mobile phones should then represent 95.9% of all telephone connections in India.

With one of the worlds lowest Internet penetration rates standing at 1.1% and 12.9 million Internet subscribers at the end of 2008, Indias Internet sector represents a significantly untapped market. High poverty level and low PC penetration (1.6%) however continue to hinder the proliferation of this service outside of main cities. We therefore forecast for this sector to grow at an average rate of 12.5% over the next 5 years to reach 23.1 million subscribers and 185.1 million users at the end of 2013.

Broadband is now the main generator of growth in the Internet market, with the number of dial-up customers steadily decreasing in importance. In the first quarter of 2009 alone, the number of broadband customers increased by 12.7% to 6.2 million connections.

By the end of 2009, the number of broadband customers should therefore have reached 7.7 million and represent 51.3% of Internet connections. At the end of 2013, it is forecasted that the number of broadband customers should have reached 18.1 million, and represent 78.0% of all Internet connections. At that time, broadband penetration should stand at 1.4%, compared with 0.5% at the end of March 2009.