India has 19 cr phone subscribers

NEW DELHI: Telecom sector in the country is on a roll. The number of annual additions of subscribers in 2006 is three times the additions in 2004 while teledensity has increased by nearly 100% over the same period, from 8.62 at the end of December 2004 to 17.16 at the end of December 2006, according to recent figures released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

The wireless segment added 6.48 million subscribers in December 2006 as compared to 6.8 million in November 2006.

At the end of December 2006, total wireless (GSM, CDMA and WLL-F) subscribers were 149.5 million.

However, fixed line subscriber base registered a negative growth of 0.08 million in December last year, resulting in a net addition of 6.4 million subscribers as compared with 6.75 million during November 2006.

The gross telephony subscribers in the country reached 189.93 million as on December 2006.

The net addition of wireless and fixed line subscribers in the first nine months of the last fiscal is 49.61 million, almost twice as compared to the addition of 26.37 million in the corresponding period of fiscal year 2005-06.