Indian mobile users growth has not met projections made by TRAI. It had set a target of 70 million mobile subscribers by March 2005 and 100 million by December 2005. But the country’s total mobile subscriber base is still only about 56 million.
The Cellular Operators’ Association of India, the body representing all GSM players, had set an internal target of 80 million subscribers by the year-end.
“This required an addition of 2.75 million new subscribers (both GSM and CDMA) a month. However, India has been averaging just about 1.5 million new subscribers per month. At current rates, we are likely to finish with 65-70 million subscribers by December,” said COAI director-general T V Ramachandran