Indian mobile users to hit 771 mn by 2013

Research firm Gartner said that Indian mobile users will jump more than 90 per cent to 771 million by 2013 as companies expand networks to rural areas in the world’s fastest growing wireless market, .

India had 403.66 million wireless users at the end of April, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India figures showed earlier this month, second only to China that has more than 600 million wireless subscribers.

Cheap call tariffs and handsets are driving demand in India, where operators such as Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications Ltd are now building telecom towers and networks to cover smaller towns and villages to hook new users.

Gartner, the world’s biggest technology research firm, sees mobile subscriber base growing at a compound annual growth rate of 14.3 per cent in the four years to 2013, up from an estimated 452 million by the end of 2009.

Revenues of Indian mobile phone companies will exceed $30 billion in 2013, rising at a compound annual growth rate of 12.5 per cent over the same period, it said. – Source