India saw 32 million new phone connections in 2005

It is not only that the Indian mobile market is growing by leaps and bounds. Even the basic telephone segment is improving with record number of new connections registered in the year 2005. The country saw as many as 32 million new phone connections registered in 2005, which is a record for the industry.

With this, the country now has an approximate 125 million telephone users. This number is not very impressive when we consider the population of the country, which is well over a billion people. However, the growth gives some hope for the telecom industry, which has also seen a boom in the mobile phone market. The number of new connections in the year 2005 impressively matches the number of total telephone connections India had just around four years ago!

Indian telecom authority also added that December 2005 was the star of the year when as many as 4.92 million users were added. The split up figures for the total number of connections is: 76 million mobile phone users and 49 million fixed-line users. Privatization of telecom sector has helped a lot with new players coming in and competition increasing. The rates of mobile and telephone connections are some of the lowest in the world and it is cheaper than ever to get a new telephone or mobile connection.

The telecom industry is expecting this growth to continue. The average speed is around five million new connections every month and this can go on for another couple of years. Impressively, most of these new connections are in the mobile segment.