India is currently the world’s second largest telecom market with a subscriber base of 1.17 billion. With 493.96 million internet subscribers, as of March 2018, India stands second in terms of total internet users. As of June 2018, overall teledensity stood at 89.72 per cent. Urban teledensity stood at 158.16 per cent and rural teledensity at 57.99 per cent.
During the first quarter of 2018, India became the world’s fastest-growing market for mobile applications. Government is planning to develop 100 smart city projects, where IoT would play a vital role in the development of those cities. The upcoming National Telecom Policy 2018 has envisaged attracting investments worth US$ 100 billion in the telecommunications sector by 2022.
Revenues are expected to grow to US$ 26.38 billion by 2020. The number of internet subscribers in the country is expected to double by 2021 to 829 million and overall IP traffic is expected to grow 4-fold at a CAGR of 30 per cent by 2021. Department of Telecommunication has launched ‘ Tarang Sanchar’ a web portal sharing information on mobile towers and EMF Emission Compliances. As of June 2018, BSNL is expected to launch its 5G services by 2020. Vodafone India and Idea Cellular have merged into ‘Vodafone Idea’ to become India’s largest telecom company, as of September 2018.