BMI has made several structural changes to our latest update on India's telecommunications market. The changes include a reorganisation of the various sections of the report and the adoption of a new format for presenting the operator profiles. The Mobile Data section of the report includes new coverage of the development of mobile value added services in India, as well as an overview of some of the sector's recent contract wins. In this quarter, we have focused more attention on developing the mobile sections of our report, including the mobile operator profiles. In our next quarterly update, we plan to introduce considerable revisions to the fixed-line and broadband sections of our report. In the fourth quarter of 2008, India's mobile subscriber base saw the addition of 31.58mn new customers. The 10% quarterly growth rate raised the total Indian mobile subscriber base to 346.894mn at the end of 2008. Much of the fourth quarter growth was driven by mobile market leaders Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Vodafone Essar. Together, these three operators accounted for 63% of net customer additions for the quarter and, at the end of 2008, represented 60% of the total mobile market. By the end of the year, India's mobile penetration rate had risen to 29.6%. It is notable that the 48.5% growth rate for 2008 was only slightly lower than the 56.3% growth rate recorded in 2007. We have raised our mobile growth expectations for the latter years of our five-year forecast; we now predict that India's mobile penetration rate will have risen to over 91% by the end of 2013. It should be stressed that this figure includes a significant number of inactive users and therefore overstates the actual penetration rate. Recent developments in India's telecoms market include the announcement, in February 2009, that the Indian government had once again postponed the long-awaited auction for 3G licences. It is understood that a number of issues still need to be resolved, including the number of licences to be made available and the reserve price for the auction. Meanwhile, India's regulatory authorities have already issued 3G concessions to the two state operators, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL). Following the commencement of 3G trials in September 2008, MTNL revealed that it planned to launch commercial 3G services in the Indian capital at the end of February 2009. MTNL also revealed that it would offer 3G services under the 'Jadoo' brand name, and would include services such as internet, videoconferencing and gaming. India remains in eighth place in BMI's latest set of Business Environment Rankings for Asia. Although it is let down by its weak country structure and country risk scores, India has the second-highest telecoms market rating in the region, with only Japan scoring higher. It also receives a high score for regulatory independence.
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