India s prominence in the mobile phone sector was reconfirmed after a report by the country s telecom regulatory body suggested that its mobile subscriber base would surpass than that of the US by April 2008.

According to a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report, the wireless segment had seen an addition of 8.53 million subscribers in the month of February 2008 as against 8.77 million subscribers in January 2008. India s total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA and WLL) base stood at 250.93 million at the end of February 2008, the report stated.

Airtel added maximum new users in the month of February 2008. It enrolled 2.26 million users followed by Reliance Communications (1.6 million) and Vodafone Essar (1.4 million) in Feb 2008.

Compared to the US and China, India's monthly wireless subscriber addition of 8.5 million users is the highest. Given the phenomenal growth in the wireless segment, TRAI has predicted that India would have the second largest wireless subscriber base after China in the first half of April 2008. TRAI also expects India s total subscriber base to cross the 300 million mark in April. According to CTIA (an Association of Wireless operators in US), the subscriber base of USA is 256 million at present.

However, despite the phenomenal growth in numbers, the telephone density in India hovers around the 25% mark. This means that only one out of every four Indians has a telephone connection.