2006 was a big year for Indian mobile industry

India has become one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world. The country nearly doubled the number of mobile users last year and the numbers are not slowing down.

Sources reveal that the country saw addition of as many as 74 million new mobile telephone subscribers last year. Not surprising, India is attracting a lot of global mobile service providers including the UK based Vodafone.

The country had just around 75.94 million mobile users at the end of the year 2005. The number is now around 149.5 million subscribers at the end of December last year. These figures were revealed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in Delhi.

One of the main reasons for this growth is low rates for mobile communication in India. India boasts of some of the lowest tariff charges for mobile users in the world.

As a result, mobile service providers are focusing on increasing revenues through value added services. The GSM operators in the country have just announced that they would soon launch mobile instant messaging facilities on their networks.

Such services are necessary to attract more users to achieve the target of 500 million telephones, both fixed and wireless, by 2010 set by the Indian government.