India mobile users to tripple by 2011: Bharti

Singapore, Jun 20: India's top mobile operator, Bharti Airtel Ltd., said on Tuesday it expected the number of cellular subscribers in the country to treble to 300 million in the next three to five years.

Phone ownership is surging in India, Asia's third-largest economy, which has the world's cheapest local mobile call rates at less than 2 U.S. cents a minute.

''This whole growth phase is just beginning. India is very under-penetrated with 100 million mobile users,'' Sanjay Kapoor, Joint President, Mobility at Bharti, told Reuters in an interview.

''The country should get down to the 300 million mark over the next three to five years, and even then, with about 27 percent penetration rate, it's far below levels of most Asian countries,'' said Kapoor, the joint head of the firm's mobile operations.

Despite the accelerating growth, less than 10 percent of India's billion-plus population has access to mobile services as networks are still concentrated in cities. Carriers are now expanding into untapped rural areas, where more than two-thirds of the population lives.

New Delhi-based Bharti, previously known as Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd., is 30.84 percent-owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., and 10 percent-owned by British-based mobile phone giant Vodafone Plc.

ADDING A MILLION USERS PER MONTH

Kapoor said Bharti's subscriber growth in June was in line with the robust trend seen in May.

The firm added about 1.2 million new subscribers in May, increasing its user base to nearly 21.9 million. It has said that it is confident of adding more than a million users each month in the cut-throat sector.

''The beginning of June has not been bad, and the growth is in line with May,'' Kapoor added, but declined to provide any numbers. ''We expect this current growth rate to be sustainable.'' Kapoor said Bharti's net adds would continue to outpace overall new mobile user growth in the Indian market.

''If you notice historical trends, we've always been ahead of the curve, and we expect the market growth this year to be around the same levels as last year, if not better, and for us to grow faster than that,'' he said, but declined to provide forecasts.

In the year ended March 2005, Bharti increased its net adds by 67 percent, compared with the market's growth of 55 percent.

In the year to March 2006, Bharti's new subscriber growth was 78 percent, versus 73 percent in the broader market.

Bharti is among the most aggressive carriers in India's fragmented market of 98.6 million users, or nearly the combined population of Spain and Italy.

It competes against Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., India's second-ranked GSM operator, and Reliance Communications Ventures Ltd., which uses rival CDMA technology.

Another rival is Hutchison Essar Telecom, the local wireless arm of Hong Kong's Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd.

In April, Bharti reported a 49 percent surge in quarterly profits that beat even the most optimistic analyst forecast as subscriber numbers jumped.

Shares of Bharti fell 1.5 percent on Tuesday, roughly in line with a decline in the broader Indian market.

REUTERS