India adds 1.11mn CDMA users in Feb

NEW DELHI: India's CDMA carriers, led by Reliance Infocomm Ltd., added 1.11 million new wireless users in February in the world's fastest growing mobile market, an industry body said.

Last month's addition takes the overall CDMA mobile user base to 19 million, the Association of Unified Telecom Services Providers, representing four carriers, said in a statement.

That takes the total mobile user base in Asia's third largest economy to 82.21 million - more than the entire population of Germany. The remaining customers use services based on the more common GSM technology.

Nine GSM carriers are yet to report for February.

The CDMA association said top-ranked operator Reliance Infocomm added almost 804,000 mobile users, boosting its customer base to 14.6 million.

Reliance Infocomm's parent firm, Reliance Communications Ventures Ltd., is due to be listed on stock exchanges on Monday.

Second-ranked Tata Teleservices Ltd. added 313,192 mobile customers, raising its user base to 4.4 million.

Local mobile call tariffs as low as 2 U.S. cents a minute are driving increased cellular usage as intense competition and expansion of networks in untapped rural areas fuel demand.

Less than 8 percent of the billion-plus population use wireless facilities.

Both Reliance and Tata compete mainly with GSM carriers Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd., state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. and Hutchison Essar Telecom Ltd., the Indian wireless operation of Hong Kong's Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd.