|
|
India Added Half a Million New Customers Per Day in Q1 09
We have seen some extraordinary growth in India in recent times, but the Q1 09 gain was truly spectacular: the quarterly uplift of 44.87m was equivalent to almost 0.5m new customers a day. The previous Indian and world best was Q4 08's 31.58m. At the end of the quarter, the total Indian customer base stood at 391.64m. Penetration was 34.5%, which indicates that there is plenty of potential for further growth in the market.
Subsequent monthly figures showed the customer base rising to 414.70m at the end of May. Monthly net additions dropped away slightly compared to Q1 09, which saw two 15m+ months, but with both April and May seeing 11m+ net additions, the slowdown was hardly dramatic.
The key driver of growth was Reliance, which saw an astonishing 11.32m net additions in the quarter as it launched GSM services in several new regions. This was not only a record for Reliance, it was also the highest figure ever seen in India. However, the Q1 09 bonanza was by no means a one-man show. In fact, every one of India's seven largest networks scored a personal best. Bharti added 8.27m, Vodafone 7.84m, BSNL 5.92m, IDEA 4.68m, Tata 3.36m and Aircel 2.40m.
Bharti remains the clear market leader with 93.92m customers at the end of Q1 09. In second place, Reliance has moved well clear of Vodafone thanks to its bumper quarter, finishing with 72.67m customers to Vodafone's 68.77m. At the end of 2008, by contrast, Reliance's lead was just 0.4m. The battle for fifth place has also calmed slightly, with IDEA increasing its lead over Tata to 3.76m, having been 0.33m behind a year earlier. At the end of the quarter IDEA had 38.89m to Tata's 35.12m.
In terms of proportionate growth, the total market saw an uplift of 50.1% in the year to 31st March 2009. Despite its Q1 09 performance, Reliance was not the fastest growing of the top seven, this honour going to Aircel which saw a 74.2% annual gain. Second was IDEA with 62.0% ahead of Reliance with 58.7%.
Posted to the site on 9th July 2009
This article was extracted from The Mobile World Briefing, the weekly newsletter from The Mobile World.
To download a sample issue of the Briefing in PDF format, please click here.
For more information including full subscription pricing, please visit The Mobile World