India is poised to become the world's largest mobile market, according to the latest survey by Informa Telecoms & Media. The forecast reveals that the number of active mobile subscriptions in India will rise to 1.159 billion by the end of 2013, thus taking over China.
"There are two main factors fuelling this growth in India - increased competition and the prevalence of multi-SIM activity,” explains Shannon Keefe, Senior Market Forecaster at Informa Telecoms & Media. "One follows the other as a series of price wars and promotional campaigns has invigorated the dual-SIM market as consumers take advantage of short-term promotions from operators before leaving active SIMs dormant. With just three national operators in China, there is just not the same level of competition as in India, and therefore not the same febrile atmosphere surrounding pricing and promotional activity."
Bharti Airtel, with 127.6 million active subscriptions (March 2010) and a 22% share of the market, remains the largest of India's 13 mobile operators, ahead of Vodafone Essar and Reliance Communications. The ever-rising domestic competition will take a heavy toll on Bharti's market share by coming down to 19% by the end of 2013. Interestingly, Bharti’s main rivals would not steal the market share; rather, newcomers such as Telenor, Etisalat and Videocon, will make the competition tough.
