Indian Mobile Phones Growing At 90% Pa

Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has said that the key to the growth of the telecom industry has been liberalization, reforms and competition. The Prime Minister was speaking at the India Telecom-2007 Conference which he inaugurated here today.

The Prime Minister also released a Report on Indian Telecom. The Prime Minister said that three years ago, a target of 250 million telephone subscribers by 2007 was considered too ambitious. “You have proved the critics wrong and have reached the milestone well in time. I congratulate the industry for this phenomenal expansion and growth. Today, as my colleague A Raja mentioned around eight million new telephone subscribers are being added in India every month. This is mostly in the mobile telephone segment. Mobile telephony has been growing at an annual rate of over 90 per cent since 2003″.

The Prime Minister said that we need to make use of this precious and limited resource in an optimal manner. All technological options must be explored to maximize its utilization. The policy regime for make spectrum available should be fair, transparent, equitable and forward looking. It should not create entry barriers to newcomers or barriers to the continued growth of the important sector. At the same time, the revenue potential to the government must not be lost sight of, he added.

Shri A.Raja, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, in his address said that in the past three and a half years alone, we have commitments of about US$ 2 billion investment in IT and Telecom sector by 2010. In the telecom manufacturing itself there has been commitment of more than US $ 2 billion and we expect fresh commitment of about US $ 2 billion in next one year. These investments will contribute significantly to the employment and GDP growth, he added.

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