In obvious signs of growing
teledensity in Tamil Nadu and the involvement of technology in everyday
life, every second person in the
state now owns a mobile phone connection and about 65% of the
population has a telephone connection.
As per data available with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI), Tamil Nadu had more than four crore mobile subscribers by June
this year. As of June 2009, the Tamil Nadu circle (which excludes
Chennai) had 3.03 crore mobile subscribers while Chennai circle had
96.51 lakh subscribers. The number of landline phones in Tamil Nadu
circle stood at 22.24 lakh, falling from 22.36 lakh in May 2009, while
for the Chennai circle, the number was 14.10 lakh in June
2009.
This takes the total number
of phone connections in the state to about 4.36 crore, while the
state's projected population at the end of 2009 is 6.65 crore.
What is interesting is the fact that the two new entrants, MTS and Idea
Cellular, have managed to add 1,21,985 subscribers within a single
month between May 2009 and June 2009 in both the circles. Already,
Chennai has the highest teledensity in the country at 131% (131
connections for every 100 persons). While MTS added 63,525 customers
during the one-month period, Idea which launched operations in May
added 58,460 customers.
Tamil Nadu, including Chennai circle, stands at the number two position
among states in terms of number of mobile phone subscribers at four
crore. Maharashtra (including Mumbai circle) has 5.3 crore subscribers,
while Andhra Pradesh has 3.3 crore subscribers.
What could explain this high number of subscribers in the state is that
many people have multiple phone connections. "In a city like Chennai,
people use two numbers. They have dual SIM cards for official and
personal use. So that could explain such large numbers vis-a-vis the
population," M Srinivas, senior vice president- Tamil Nadu and Chennai,
Idea Cellular, told The Times of India.
Srinivasa Rao Saripalli, CEO- TN and Kerala, MTS also agrees with the
view. "If you count absolute teledensity, there could be multiple
connections in a household. But then, people here are more receptive to
new products.
They are looking at better network coverage, tariffs and quality of
service."
What's more, industry experts see the upward trend continuing for a
while. "There are still towns and areas that have not yet been
penetrated. There is still so much potential for mobile services to
reach in Tamil Nadu," Srinivas of Idea said.
Interestingly, of the eight operators in the stateBSNL, Aircel,
Reliance, Airtel, Vodafone, Tata Teleservices, MTS and Idea Cellular,
only Tata Teleservices lost subscribers between May and June. While it
lost 5,454 subscribers in the Chennai circle, 11,753 customers went out
of its network in the Tamil Nadu circle.
Source:
