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The diffusion of mobile phones in India

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  • Singh, Sanjay Kumar

Abstract

Mobile phones, which were introduced around a decade ago in 1995-1996 in India, are becoming the dominant means of accessing communication. At the end of 2005-2006, there were 90 million mobile subscribers in India in comparison to 50 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 paper is to estimate future trends and analyze the pattern and rate of adoption of mobile phones in India. The paper uses S-shaped growth curve models for the same. It is found that mobile-density (number of mobile phones per 100 inhabitants) in India will increase from 8.1 in 2005-2006 to 36.5 in 2010-2011 and 71 in 2015-2016. Consequently, the mobile subscriber base is projected to increase from 90 million in 2005-2006 to 433 million in 2010-2011 and nearly 900 million in 2015-2016. The projected rapid growth in the mobile subscriber base will have important implications for future plans of mobile operators, infrastructure providers, handset suppliers and vendors. Mobile operators should be ready with contingency plans to deploy and operate infrastructure including customer care, billing, applications, etc., faster than that they might have initially planned. Infrastructure providers, handset suppliers and vendors should be prepared to respond to such plans.

Suggested Citation

  • Singh, Sanjay Kumar, 0. "The diffusion of mobile phones in India," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(9-10), pages 642-651, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:32:y::i:9-10:p:642-651
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    Cited by:

    1. Baburin, Vyacheslav & Zemtsov, Stepan, 2014. "Diffussion of ICT-products and "five Russias"," MPRA Paper 68926, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 May 2014.
    2. Gamboa, Luis Fernando & Otero, Jesús, 0. "An estimation of the pattern of diffusion of mobile phones: The case of Colombia," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(10-11), pages 611-620, November.
    3. Angelo Castaldo & Alessandro Fiorini & Bernardo Maggi, 2018. "Measuring (in a time of crisis) the impact of broadband connections on economic growth: an OECD panel analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(8), pages 838-854, February.
    4. Eleni Laitsou & Antonios Kargas & Dimitris Varoutas, 2020. "Digital Competitiveness in the European Union Era: The Greek Case," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-33, October.
    5. Vesselkova, Alexandr & Riikonena, Antti & Hämmäinena & Heikki, 2015. "Evolution of mobile handset feature dependences," 26th European Regional ITS Conference, Madrid 2015 127192, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    6. Mishra, Vishal & Singh Bisht, Shailendra, 2013. "Mobile banking in a developing economy: A customer-centric model for policy formulation," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 503-514.
    7. Annafari, Mohammad Tsani, 2013. "Multiple subscriptions of mobile telephony: Explaining the diffusion pattern using sampling data," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 930-939.
    8. Manoj, M. & Verma, Ashish, 2015. "Activity–travel behaviour of non-workers from Bangalore City in India," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 400-424.
    9. Lütfü Şağbanşua & Osman Şahin & Muhterem Çöl, 2015. "Determinants of Mobile Penetration to Forecast New Broadband Adoption: OECD Case," Alphanumeric Journal, Bahadir Fatih Yildirim, vol. 3(2), pages 35-40, December.
    10. Thakur Dhakal & Dae-Eun Lim, 2020. "Understanding ICT adoption in SAARC member countries," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 67-80, April.
    11. Lokesh Jain & Harish Kumar & R. K. Singla, 2015. "Assessing Mobile Technology Usage for Knowledge Dissemination among Farmers in Punjab," Information Technology for Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 668-676, October.
    12. Yamakawa, Peter & Rees, Gareth H. & Manuel Salas, José & Alva, Nikolai, 2013. "The diffusion of mobile telephones: An empirical analysis for Peru," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 594-606.
    13. Lechman, Ewa & Kaur, Harleen, 2016. "Social development and ICT adoption. Developing world perspective," MPRA Paper 69354, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. M. Manoj & Ashish Verma, 2017. "A structural equation model based analysis of non-workers’ activity-travel behaviour from a city of a developing country," Transportation, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 241-269, March.
    15. repec:gdk:wpaper:33 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Jha, Ashutosh & Saha, Debashis, 2020. "“Forecasting and analysing the characteristics of 3G and 4G mobile broadband diffusion in India: A comparative evaluation of Bass, Norton-Bass, Gompertz, and logistic growth models”," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    17. Han, Zhongya & Tang, Zhongjun & He, Bo, 2022. "Improved Bass model for predicting the popularity of product information posted on microblogs," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    18. Honoré, Bidiasse, 2019. "Diffusion of mobile telephony: Analysis of determinants in Cameroon," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 287-298.
    19. Varadharajan Sridhar, 2010. "An econometric analysis of mobile services growth across regions of India," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 205-220, October.
    20. Quamrul Alam & Mohammad Abu Yusuf & Ken Coghill, 2010. "Unilateral liberalisation and WTO GATS commitments: the telecommunications sector in selected countries," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 24(1), pages 43-64, May.
    21. Meade, Nigel & Islam, Towhidul, 2015. "Forecasting in telecommunications and ICT—A review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1105-1126.
    22. Gupta, Ruchita & Jain, Karuna, 2015. "Adoption behavior of rural India for mobile telephony: A multigroup study," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 691-704.
    23. Barman, Hemanta & Dutta, Mrinal Kanti & Nath, Hiranya K., 2018. "The telecommunications divide among Indian states," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(7), pages 530-551.

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