India's CDMA Growth Exceeds GSM for First Time Since October
In June 2007 the number of CDMA mobile customers in India grew faster than the number of GSM customers for the first time since October 2006. The CDMA customer base enjoyed a 4.9% increase in the month, the highest growth rate for nine months, whilst the GSM base recorded an average-looking 4.1% - although this was an improvement on 3.4% in April and 4.0% in May.
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Proportionate Customer Growth by Technology
Net Addtions by Operator
In absolute terms, the GSM customer base remains by far the larger of the two, at 146m to CDMA's 41m at the end of June 2007. These figures imply that CDMA customers made up 23.2% of the overall national mobile customer total in India at the end of the second quarter, which is little changed from the 23.1% recorded at the end of the first. This proportion was of course down noticeably on that for February, after Reliance Infocomm's CDMA business suffered significant disconnections in the month of March as a result of the terms of the customer registration programme. The company itself was said recently to be registering and reconnecting many of those who had missed the 31st March deadline for one reason or another, but if this is the case it is not having any discernable effect on the overall balance between CDMA and GSM.
Vodafone's new Indian business Vodafone-Essar was the best performing of the big four Indian operators in June, with a 5.28% uplift in customer numbers, ahead of Bharti with 4.81%, Reliance with 3.77% and BSNL with just 1.47%. India's three medium sized cellular businesses Aircel, IDEA and TATA Teleservices all performed better than Vodafone, with customer increases of 5.72%, 5.63% and 6.32% respectively in June, and all gained market share. As the overall mobile customer market grew by 4.3% in June, by implication Vodafone and Bharti also gained share, whilst Reliance and BSNL both lost ground, the latter company haemorraghing half a percentage point perhaps as a result of continuing supply problems.
The relative performances of the main players in the Indian market in the first six months of 2007 can be seen in the net additions chart below. Bharti, Vodafone-Essar and Idea have all registered fairly consistent improvements in their net additions figures over the last three or four months, whilst the turbulence at Reliance and BSNL is clear to see. The performance of TATA Teleservices in June is also notable, the company registering its second best ever uptake of new customers with 758k net additions, behind the record 884k recorded in October last year.
Posted to the site on 25th July 2007
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