5 different ways to count Indian mobile penetration

The GSMA's unique mobile subscriber estimate of 405m looks low, though it is fiendishly difficult to estimate how many SIM cards an individual has

Mohammad Chowdhury
Updated: Apr 23, 2014 11:46:57 AM UTC

The GSMA’s info graphic on five different ways to measure Indian subscribers (see below) has sparked some interesting debates in the social media. Here are the five distinct measures put forward:

  1. Population covered by a mobile network, which according to Bharti Airtel’s reported network coverage, is 87%, or 1.1bn people.
  2. Addressable population, i.e the number of people in India who could use a mobile, which the GSMA (GSM Association) estimates as 819m by excluding all juveniles aged below 14
  3. Registered mobile connections, i.e the number of SIMs, not individual users, that are recorded on operators’ systems, and estimated to be 886m.
  4. Unique mobile subscribers, i.e how many individual people use a mobile, not total SIMs (since there may be multiple per person, and embedded SIMs in machines), which the GSMA believes is 405m
  5. Active mobile connections, which states the number of connections, estimated to be 762m, who have used their connection at least once in the past 30-90 days.
subscriber

I have a few thoughts on this:

  • It would be more valuable to show “active mobile subscribers” as opposed to active mobile connections.
  • The GSMA should also consider total mobile connections, including machine-embedded SIMs (ie not just SIMs in mobiles, tablets and PCs) as in future embedded SIMs will likely grow rapidly in India through M2M technologies.
  • Define “addressable population” as people who could use a mobile who are also covered by a network – so that the addressable total rises as network coverage does - the GSMA's current definition only counts people above 14 as "addressable", counting them as addressable even if they are not covered by any network
  • The GSMA's unique mobile subscriber estimate of 405m looks low, though it is fiendishly difficult to estimate how many SIM cards an individual has. I would have thought the number be closer to 500-550m all-in-all, a thought-provoking graphic way to show how there are so many ways to measure the same thing – each measure being useful from a unique perspective.  Thanks to @benedictevans for hosting some interesting commentary.

Any thoughts?

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

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