Twenty-six million of India’s 563 million mobile phone subscri­bers have handsets that are

RELATED ARTICLES DoT may not allow spectrum sharing by 3G operators 3G bidding has taken sheen off Indian telecom industry: Mittal 3G: TDSAT reserves order on jurisdiction issue

3G enabled, according to the Indian Cellular Association. That’s near about the number of Indians who hold credit cards, and a little over half the number who pay income-tax.

Indians who wield 3G handsets outnumber the entire population of Australia by about five million, Belgium by 16 million, Denmark by 21 million, the Netherlands by 10 million and Switzerland by 19 million.

From the practical perspective, 26 million Indians use 3G handsets to get only 2G service, for the country is only now going through the motions of selecting telecom companies that will eventually run the 3G service that all the countries named above already have for some time.

The government promises that 3G services will be up and running in six months. It is anybody’s guess, though, if it will by the September date, given the delays that have dogged the spectrum auction.

Why would so many Indians use handsets that cannot work to their full potential in the absence of 3G services? There is no answer to this, but a good guess would be that it is the flaunt value associated with 3G handsets. Some of them have surely bought handsets in anticipation of 3G coming in.

Some may have simply fallen for the salesman’s spiel. Yet others would have bought the handsets because they could be had cheap (think Indian-branded Chinese sets).

But when the service is introduced, 3G handsets won’t remain mere vanity pieces, promises Evalueserve. In a report titled ‘Uptake of 3G services in India’, it says the number of Indians with 3G handsets will increase to 395 million by 2013, growing by 82 per cent CAGR (compounded annual growth rate).

In three years from now, urban mobile users will account for 80 per cent of all 3G subscribers, and services such as video downloads, music downloads, internet applications and search will see an upsurge, according to the report.

Nokia’s director of operator accounts V Ramnath said there was traction in the 3G handset market. “3G is expected to initially create ‘voice’ capacity in the existing spectrum; it will eventually deliver a bouquet of services from vanilla voice and basic data to rich entertainment and more. We believe 3G in India will be driven by content rather than voice,” he said.

Even with the current technologies there is big demand for content in India. Nokia has over 20 3G handset models. Specifically with 3G in mind, it has launched Ovi, an internet services brand.

Industry estimates put the handset market at Rs 40,000 crore a year, which will expand to Rs 50,000 crore next year. Every year 120 million handsets of 58 brands are sold. Experts say the number of 3G handsets sold will rise sharply once high-speed mobile internet services are available.

The managing director of Zen Mobiles, Deepesh Gupta, said, “The launch of 3G will open the doors to innovative value-added services, which will bring everything on just one convergent device, bringing a paradigm shift in cellular communication. We plan to come up with 3G handsets in three months. We see a huge growth and our R&D team is already working on product development.”

Intex Technologies’ national sales manager Sudhir Kumar said R&D on 3G devices had already started. “Subscribers are not yet educated on 3G technology. It will take some time for them to adopt it,” he said. His company plans to bring out up to 10 models of 3G handsets at low price points.

A Samsung spokesperson said, “The behaviour pattern of customers in India is different. Feature and application are important aspects a customer looks for. There is nothing tangible for 3G enabled devices today.” Samsung has 13 3G handsets and will launch seven more this year.