India Telecom sales exceed 100,000 crore

India’s telecom industry sales exceeded Rs1,00,000 crore for the first time in the last business year on the back of an increasing subscriber base, according to a survey released on 6 July.

Sales reached Rs1,07,000 crore ($26.42 billion) in the year ended March, a 22% increase from a year earlier, said the annual survey by Voice and Data, a telecom industry publication.

Mobile-phone company revenues grew 56% to Rs56,180 crore while fixed-line sales declined 11%, it said.

The number of cellular and fixed-line users rose 46% to 206 million in a country that has become one of the world’s fastest growing telecom markets as economic growth accelerates, reaching 9.4% last year.

With increased connectivity, one in five Indians now has access to a phone, said the survey.

Cellular subscribers increased almost 73% to touch 157 million, making up for a 3.3% decline in the number of fixed-line users to less than 50 million.

A steep decline in the cost of owning a cellular handset and a connection has led to a surge in the use of mobile phones in the nation of 1.1 billion people.

In the last financial year, India added more mobile-phone users per month than China. An average 5.5 million cellular lines were sold every month.

State-owned Bharat Sanchar remained the top service provider, posting revenue of Rs40,135 crore in the year to March, followed by Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Hutch and Videsh Sanchar