Mobile user growth rate may’ve peaked ?

Mobile user growth rate may've peaked sometime back

Monday, October 15, 2007 03:19 IST

NEW DELHI: The month-on-month wireless user growth rate appears to have peaked quite some time back.

This, despite the mobile growth story continuing in absolute terms in India, the world's fastest growing telecom market.

The monthly subscriber growth rate of mobile phone operators in India hit 6.17% in January 2006 (21 months ago). But it is has not touched the 6% mark since.

All of this year, the rate has not even touched 5%. Instead, it has been swaying between 2.17% and 4.55%. Analysts estimate the growth rate for September around 3.8%.

While global systems for mobile communications (GSM) operators added 6 million subscribers in September 2007, players in the code division multiple access (CDMA) lobby are yet to make their numbers public.

However, it is believed the CDMA user base would have increased by around 2 million, thereby taking the wireless subscriber numbers to 209 million.

The government had set a target of 250 million phone subscribers, of which 200 million would be mobile users, for 2007. India is well ahead of the 200 million wireless user base figure already.

In terms of absolute monthly mobile subscriber growth, the highest in the past two years was recorded in August 2007, when the base grew by 8.31 million.

Except in March and April 2007, when the base grew at a much slower pace due to government norms on re-verification of users, the monthly addition of subscribers this year has been over 6 million. Growth for the past four months has been between 7.34 million and 8.31 million.

But the month-on-month growth rate this year reflects a different trajectory. The year began with a 4.55% growth, moving to 3.97% in February and then touching a low of 2.17% in March, due to subscriber re-verification process as mandated by the government.

April also saw some adjustments in subscriber numbers and the user base grew by just 3.11%. In May, June, July and August, the growth rate has been 3.83%, 4.12%, 4.35%, and 4.30%, respectively. The growth rate for September is estimated at 3.82%.
As reported by DNA Money last week, Bharti Airtel and BPL Mobile are the only two GSM mobile operators to have added more subscribers in September 2007 from the previous month.

GSM leader Bharti added 2.06 million subscribers in September — up from 2.05 million in August. BPL's user base increased by 51,475 in September.

In August, it added only 7,313, according to figures released by the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI).

The second-largest GSM player, Vodafone Essar, which recently announced its formal brand transition from Hutch, added 1.54 million subscribers in September, against 1.67 million in August.

Among others, Idea Cellular added 0.80 million in September against 0.86 million in August, Aircel 0.41 million in September against 0.45 million in August, Spice 84,081 in September against 0.10 million in August, and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd 0.59 million in September against 0.72 million in August.