Teledensity

HUC-722

PROJECT  REPORT

DIFFUSION OF MOBILE PHONES IN

INDIA

Submitted By:

NAMIT JAIN (2011CE10371)

UTKARSH GARG (2011TT10976)

Abstract

Mobile phones, which were introduced around 2 decades ago in 1995–1996 in India, have become the dominant means of accessing communication. At the end of 2012-2013, there were 867.8 million mobile subscribers in India in comparison to 32.17 million subscribers for landlines. The increase in mobile phones has been phenomenal in comparison with landlines since the introduction of mobiles in the country. The main aim of this project report is to analyze the pattern and rate of adoption of mobile phones in India and the major factors on which it depends. This project examines the importance of various factors ranging from GDP, disposable income to household sizes in adoption of mobile technology by people from various states of India. This will further help in establishing the weights which can be attributed to these factors while predicting the future expansion or adoption of these technologies.

Introduction

The mobile industry in India has been growing at a very high rate ever since the introduction of mobile phones. The number of mobile phone subscribers have increased from 0.03 million in 1995-1996 to 867.8 million in 2012-2013. The rules and regulations set by the government have encouraged competition in the industry, both in terms of the number of competitors as well as the range of services which they can provide. The competition between the service providers has resulted in rapid falls in tariffs and newer and newer schemes to lure in the customers. As a result the telecommunication charges are in India are among the lowest, whereas the growth in subscriber base the among the highest in the world.

Mobile will continue to be the dominant mode of communication in India, mainly because mobile networks can be more cost efficiently deployed than normal copper telephone line networks and also because mobile phones are much more convenient and flexible as compared to the landline telephones. Added infrastructural costs for a new customer are only around Rs6000 in case of mobile phones whereas it can be as high as Rs24000 in case of landlines. The return on investment and the cash flow are faster for the operators in case of mobile phones because of the fast and cheaper deployment of mobile networks. Although the corporate sector and the home data users still prefer landlines.