India Passes 500M Mobile Mark

India's mobile operators activated a staggering 17.65 million new lines during November to take the country's total to just more than 506 million, according to new data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) .

The figures suggest there's plenty of near-term growth left in the Indian mobile market, as the number of new lines still seems to be growing month on month. In October, the mobile population grew by 16.7 million, while in September it increased by nearly 15 million.
Including the country's 37.2 million fixed lines, India now has 543.2 million phone lines, giving it a teledensity of 46.32 percent, meaning there's still plenty of room left for growth, mostly in the country's populous rural areas.
It's not all good news for the Indian mobile market, though. Increasing competition is squeezing the tariffs and margins of incumbent and new entrants alike, while plans to introduce 3G services and mobile number portability (MNP) are in familiar disarray. (See AsiaWatch: India 3G Update.)
Plans to introduce MNP from the beginning of 2010 -- see AsiaWatch: What Price India's Mobile Market? and AsiaWatch: India Preps Number Portability -- have suffered a late setback, with April 2010 now looking like the earliest date, according to the Economic Times.
Tata gains ground on Idea
Once again, Tata Teleservices Ltd. signed up the most new customers, adding 3.3 million during November to take its total mobile subscriber base to 54 million. It's now only 1.9 million behind IDEA Cellular Ltd. , which also had a good growth month, adding 2.5 million new lines. (See table below.)

Table 1: India's Mobile Operators by Subscribers, November 2009

	October 2009	November 2009	Additions during November
Bharti Airtel	113.2 million	116 million	2.8 million
Reliance Communications	88.2 million	91 million	2.8 million
Vodafone Essar	85.8 million	88.6 million	2.8 million
BSNL	59.4 million	60.8 million	1.4 million
Idea Cellular	53.4 million	55.9 million	2.5 million
Tata Teleservices	50.7 million	54 million	3.3 million
Aircel	27.7 million	29.4 million	1.7 million
MTNL	4.74 million	4.82 million	0.08 million
Loop Telecom	2.55 million	2.6 million	0.05 million
Sistema Shyam	2.3 million	2.65 million	0.35 million
HFCL Infotel	0.37 million	0.34 million	(0.03 million)
Total mobile lines activated	488.4 million	506 million	17.6 million
Source: TRAI

Both are still a long way behind the big three: Market leader Bharti Airtel Ltd. (Mumbai: BHARTIARTL), still the only operator with more than 100 million mobile customers, and close rivals Reliance Communications Ltd. and Vodafone Essar .
Reliance appears to be preparing for a growth spurt. It's planning major investments (worth about US$1.35 billion) in its mobile and enterprise services infrastructure during the coming year as part of a plan dubbed "Edge 2010," according to India's Business Standard.
— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading