February 12, 2006	Sunday	Muharram 13, 1427

MUMBAI, Feb 11: After trailing for years, the Indian cellular sector has finally caught up with its Chinese counterpart in terms of mobile subscriptions, at least for December ‘05.

The mobile subscriber addition in India in December ‘05 reached around 4.5m. China has been adding about 4 to 5m mobile subscribers per month in the last 5 years.

“Thus India has really caught up with China in mobile growth,” telecom regulator Trai said in a ‘Supplement on Mobile Sector Highlighting Usage, Revenue and Growth Pattern - India catches up with China in mobile growth’.

The total handset sales during ‘05 were higher than the total number of subscribers added during the year. The number of cellular subscribers added in ‘05 was 28m while handset sales stood at 32m during the year.

With soaring monthly additions, the sale of handsets is likely to reach 60-65m in ‘06, said Trai. The replacement market in India is about 10 per cent of the total subscriber base.

The sale of handsets in China is around 100m of which about 60m are purchased by new subscribers and remaining 40m are replacement of old handsets. Tariffs are lower in India as the per minute cellular tariff is 2.5 cents in India compared to 3.5 cents in China, Trai pointed out.

At the end of ‘99 (11 years after it began mobile services), China had 43m users while India, after 11 years of mobile services, had 76m subscribers (as on December ‘05).

Thus, India’s mobile sector has grown faster than China if one compares the growth of mobile telephony during the first 11 years.

Average minute of usage per subscriber per month (MOU) for the quarter was 367 for both GSM and CDMA. On an average, local calls comprise 89 per cent of total outgoing MOUs, 10.9 per cent NLD calls and 0.1 per cent ILD calls, Trai added.

The share of prepaid in total subscriber base is 80 per cent at the end of September ‘05. The highest share of prepaid subscribers is in the C circle at 89 per cent and lowest in metros at 76 per cent.

However, this fast subscriber growth has come at the cost of declining average revenue per user (ARPU). For GSM players, all India ARPU for the quarter ended September ‘05 was Rs374, showing a decline of 2.6 per cent from Rs381 for June ‘05.

“The trend since September ‘04 indicates a decline of 7.4pc in all-India ARPU,” Trai said. Similarly, CDMA service providers saw all India ARPU of Rs244 during the September ‘05 quarter.

Postpaid ARPU at Rs 646 per month was about 2.3 times that of prepaid ARPU of Rs284 per month for GSM operators. For CDMA, the postpaid ARPU at Rs444 was around 2.29 times that of prepaid ARPU of Rs194.

Trai said the revenue per minute (RPM) accruing to GSM operators for July-September ‘05 was Rs1.02 in comparison to Rs1.06 for the previous quarter ending June ‘05, showing a decline of 4 per cent. The corresponding figure for CDMA players was Rs0.52 and for postpaid alone, RPM was Rs0.77 as against Rs0.44 for prepaid service.—By arrangement with The Times of India