Telecom Sector - 1 : Mobile Evolution in India

Every three out of four people in India has a mobile - or so does the numbers say. There are around 900 million mobile phone subscribers in India, which has a population of about 1200 million people. The active mobile subscribers are supposed to be somewhere around 600 million. Interestingly there are only around 40 million landline phone subscribers. The growth for landline connections has been negative for some quarters. (source TRAI)

Before 90's people had to apply for a landline phone connection and wait for months to get the connection approved. In late 90's, mobile revolution has changed this scenario completely. With the convenience of anywhere-anytime, people have taken to mobile phones like duck to water. Prices were slashed over a period of time - both the mobile handset and the outgoing call tariff. Roaming charges were reduced which made the businessmen adopt it even more.

The traditional use of a mobile phone is to make voice calls and send short messages. I find the following to be general purpose calls on mobile phone. This is just a fraction of the possibilities, anyway and no offense intended to anyone.

1. Short-and-sweet call : Make a 'Honey, I am coming home…' call while leaving office
2. Office Travel : 'Hello Murali, I would like to go to airport on 12th, Can you come at 6 AM on that day?'

3. Friendship : 'Hi buddy, want to catch-up at coffee day tomorrow? I am bored'

4. Cooking Advice: 'When should I add salt to this dish? Is it while boiling tamarind? Oh! No tamarind at all !'

5. Buying Advice : 'I am buying Samsung Phablet. I am in a shop right now. He is quoting Rs. x. should I got for it?'
6. Out-of-office : 'Sorry. I am on vacation right now. I would be joining back the office on next Monday. Can you please call me back then to sort out the problem?'

7. Occasion : 'WoW ! That's good news. Congratulations !'

8. Pocket Money : 'I need more money this month. We are going for a tour this semester'
9. Drivers have a mobile : 'Driver, bring the car to the portico. I will be there in 2 minutes'
10. Pesky Calls :'I don't need a credit card and I don't want to give any more charity. I have enough loans to clear !'

As someone said, Mr. Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel was smart enough to figure out that people love to talk and one can make money by giving them a personal microphone and speaker. And thus the telecom revolution has begun in India !

It has to be noted that there is no mobile revolution without evolution of information technology. The rapid evolution of simple mobile handset to feature phone, smartphone, phablet, tablet, notebook, ultra-book and so on is all because of evolution of chip technology. It is noteworthy to mention that more than 90% of mobile phones worldwide carry chips (processor hardware inside mobile handsets) based on ARM Holdings technology. Isn't it amazing ?