Close on the heels of celebrating 500 million mobile customer mark, the country’s cellular phone market has now crossed another major landmark: The average urban teledensity in India has now crossed the 100 percent mark as per latest figures released by the Department of Telecom (DoT).

This implies the country’s towns, cities and metros, all of which are classified as ‘urban’ by the government, now have as many mobile connections as that of their population.

In March 2008, the country’s urban teledensity was about 60 percent, which jumped to over 85 percent in March 2009 and it has now crossed the 100 percent mark.

The intense price war in the telecom space over the past couple of months, which has plunged tariffs to an all time low — of even half paise per second — has resulted in a record growth of 15 million plus customers signing up for mobile connections every month.

Urban India accounts for close to 70 percent of India’s 500 million cellular users and over 75 percent of the telecom operators’ revenues.

The larger implication is that the country’s beleaguered mobile operators, whose revenues and profits had dipped over the last two quarters due to the savage tariff war, will now have to increase their spending as they seek to sustain the current growth rates from rural India.

In fact, even as urban India enjoys telecom penetration along the lines of developed nations, the teledensity in rural areas is only at 18 percent, DoT data adds.

Telecoms minister A Raja in a written reply to Parliament (Lok Sabha) earlier this week, had said that Himachal Pradesh enjoyed the highest urban teledensity at 219 percent, followed by Kerala at 156 percent, Delhi (154 percent), Chennai (143 percent), Mumabi (125 percent), Andhra Pradesh (121 percent), Karnataka (116 percent), while Rajasthan and Punjab have a little over 104 percent each.

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