Multi-billion-dollar investment plans in Indian booming telecom market

Indian phone giant Bharti and Swedish telecoms equipment maker Ericsson announced investments totalling 2.5 billion dollars in India's "phenomenally" fast-growing telephone market.
Bharti Airtel, India's largest private phone company, invested two billion dollars in the financial year 2006-07 and "plans a similar investment in 2007-2008," mostly targeting rural areas, a Bharti spokesman said.
Ericsson, meanwhile, said it would invest 500 million dollars over the next five years in India -- and possibly more -- to exploit growth in the sector.
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"We will be investing 100 million dollars annually for the next five years," Mats Granryd, managing director of Ericsson India, said on the sidelines of a conference in New Delhi.
"The figure could go up depending upon the growth in the sector," he said. "This (market) is growing phenomenally and I do not see an end to it."
The investment announcements came days after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said the total number of telephone subscribers in India had hit 189.9 million, of which 149.5 million were mobile customers.
Teledensity -- the number of telephones per 100 people -- rose to 17.16 in December 2006, from 11.43 in the same month in 2005, the agency said.
"There was a steep growth of 50 percent in teledensity in 2006" and "an almost 100 percent increase in teledensity since 2004,"
India added 6.48 million new mobile subscribers in December, making it one of the world's fastest-growing mobile markets.
"India's mobile subscriber base is increasing phenomenally every year -- one customer is added every second"By 2010, India will have more than 500 million mobile subscribers from the current base,"