It’s always fun to see various statistics and reports following certain months or quarters of mobile activities. Looking at the last September in India, you’re going to be amazed to find out that there were 3.9 new connections every second during the month. The market reached 310.62 million users with a penetration rate of 27.5%.

Number one operator was Bharti which managed to pull in about 2.70 new subscribers. Vodafone was second with 1.86 million, Reliance followed with 1.72 million. Idea had 1.10 million, Tata 0.96 million, Aircel 0.75 million and BPL 0.15 million.

Looking at the total number of subscribers, Bharti has 77.48 million, Reliance 56.01 million, Vodafone 54.61 million and BSNL 39.33. Everyone else follows the top four carriers. 7.65 million people chose new GSM phones while 2.34 million new subscribers chose CDMA handsets.

I wonder what the stats for China are for the same period!

via Intomobile

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone are the companies which have been selling the iPhone 3G in India so far. The phone will be available starting this December from BSNL as soon as their 3G network gets launched.

BSNL is a carrier company owned by the Indian government and they are upgrading their 3G network to UMTS. Vodafone and Airtel have GSM/EDGE while waiting for their portion of the 3G spectrum. So why say you people of India? Are you happy to see BSNL get in this iPhone 3G action? Which one do you prefer? Airtel, Voda or BSNL?

It’s rumored that BSNL might even go ahead and offer the handset for a better price than its competition but there aren’t any prices or plans available yet.

Indian carrier Bharti Airtel has come up with an Equal Monthly Installment scheme for the convenient purchase of the iPhone 3G. The new plan will be available to all VISA cardholders of ICICI bank, HDFC bank, SBI Cards and Citibank.

SBI and Citibank customers which have already purchased the iPhone can benefit from the plan? How would that happen? Well just go to your Bharti Airtel representative and ask around. The only thing you have to check is the iPhone purchase date. Purchases older than 10 days won’t qualify.

Will Bharti Airtel sell more iPhones with these EMI plans?

India is one of the 20 countries set to get the iPhone on the second worldwide release date which is August 22nd. Bharti Airtel is the carrier which will unleash the iPhone frenzy on Augusts 21st at midnight sharp.

Sanjay Kapoor, President of Bharti Airtel mobile services, said:

iPhone has been an iconic technological revelation of this year and Airtel has been at the forefront of innovation and customer delight in the Indian telecom sector.

Vodafone is the second carrier to bring the iPhone 3G in India but they will do it later this year. What we lack so far is official pricing and plans which Airtel’s officials are yet to announce.

Even as the original iPhone is yet to lay foot on the subcontinent, things are heating up between two of the largest mobile operators in India, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, now that both the companies have tied up with Apple to provide the iPhone 3G in India. To get an advantage over Bharti Airtel, Vodafone has already started pre-registering customers for the upcoming Apple device later this year. iPhone is already pretty well known in India thanks to the thousands of unlocked original iPhones that have found their way in through the gray market. We will just have to wait and see how well the iPhone 3G will be received compared to the original iPhone, both scheduled for release later this year only months apart from each other.
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Well, what do you know? The original iPhone still hasn’t made its way into those tech-savvy Indian hands and Apple announces that it will put the iPhone 3G on the subcontinent later this year. The iPhone 1.0 is scheduled for a release in September on both Vodafone and Bharti Airtel, two of India’s largest mobile operators. Going by that rule, we wouldn’t be surprised if Apple gave Vodafone a chance to put the iPhone 3G on its portfolio too.

There are no details on pricing yet but given that the original iPhone is set to cost somewhere around Rs. 27000, it would be logical to assume that the iPhone 3G will be a bit more heavier on the pocket.
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HTC has teamed up with India’s largest telecom network, Bharti Airtel, to release an EDGE only version of the Touch Diamond. With a mid-June release date, the price will be no more than Rs. 27,500 ($640). Wow, an EDGE only version? Now why would anybody want to do that? Wouldn’t it be a better idea to let 3G be and use an EDGE connection? Here’s the lame official reason:

Since India has not yet started to implement 3G services, HTC is offering an EDGE-version of the Touch Diamond to Bharti Airtel, HTC said.

And if 3G does make some headway in India in the near future, the only option left for Diamond lovers is to buy the 3G edition at the same/higher price the non-3G version begs. Great way to cripple a great device, if you ask me.

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