India's wireless user-base crosses 400-mn mark

India's wireless subscriber base has crossed the 400-million mark in April this year with an addition of 11.9 million new users.

About 11.90 million wireless (GSM, CDMA and WLL(F)) subscribers were added in April 2009 as against an addition of 15.64 million during the previous month, taking the total subscriber base to 403.66 million, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said.

The total telecom (wireless and wireline) subscriber base stood at 441.47 million at the end of April 2009 as against 429.72 million in March 2009, it added.

It now looks like the target of 500 million phones by 2010 (set by department of telecommunication) is very much achievable, even before the target period.

Total additions (wireless and wireline) in April stood at 11.75 million as compared to 15.87 million new connections in the previous month.

The wireline segment saw a slight decrease of 0.15 million in subscriber base to 37.81 million in April against 37.96 million wireline subscribers in March 2009, Trai said.

Trai added that the overall tele-density has reached 37.94 at the end of April as against 36.98 in March 2009.

Tele-density means the number of people having phones per a population of 100.

The total broadband subscriber base has reached 6.28 million by the end of April 2009 as compared to 6.22 million by the end of March 2009.

India, where local call rates are going as low as 50 cents, has been adding huge mobile subscribers as telcos like Bharti and Vodafone Essar are offering innovative tariffs to attract more customers.

The country is already the fastest growing country in terms of wireless-user addition. Bharti Airtel alone has 100 million customers.