India has caught up with China in the race to add more mobile subscribers in a month with an addition of 4-5 million subscribers added in December. In the data compiled by TRAI on growth of mobile services in India and China, the regulator has pointed that India seems to have really caught up with China in mobile growth. China and India launched mobile services in 1988 and 1995 respectively. TRAI highlighted that, if the first 11 years of performance are considered, then the performance of Indian mobile sector appears to be better than China.
TRAI today released a supplement on ‘Mobile sector highlighting usage, revenue and growth pattern – India catches up with China in mobile growth’.
In the initial 5-6 years the average monthly subscribers additions were around 0.05 to 0.1 million only and the total mobile subscribers base in December 2002 stood at 10.5 million. However, after the number of proactive initiatives taken by regulator and licensor, the monthly mobile subscriber additions increased to around 2 million per month in the year 2003-04 and 2004-05.