A report in Business Standard says that cellular base is up by 2.67%

Fair enough. I have often wondered as to why the industry association releases those numbers and why there is no independent verification of the same? Should we really assume that millions are signing up for mobile connections every month? I mean, the economic parameters suggest inflation and per se, people would spend more on the necessities instead.

Further, Reliance and Tata’s release their own numbers. Adds much to the confusion really.

One way is to “pressurise” the government in a subtle manner. Read the fine print and you would find that they talk of “regulatory bottlenecks”. Yes, they are there. But then a “veiled threat” which says that if the current growth momentum continues, they wouldn’t be able to achieve the target of “250 million customers”. Each one unique?

The cities are getting saturated. And unknown to most people, BSNL is going great guns in WLL services at the rural level. Something that Reliance hopes to counter soon. GSM majors seem to be allergic to the real mass base and perhaps the test of their marketing skills. Sachin and Shah Rukh have no mass base in rural areas. They need to package and perhaps dilute their brands to “appeal to the finicky” rural consumer.

While the exact debate would never centre on the mobile numbers in the mainstream media, we would have to suffer these handouts. Paid for media exposure for sure.