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India sets record cell-phone growth
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- India added more cell-phone customers in November than ever before, new figures show, bringing the total number of mobile users to almost 10 million. A total of 753,432 new customers signed up in November, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COIA) reported, almost doubling the amount that signed up the same time last year. There are now 9.73 million cell-phone customers nationwide. COIA says India has the lowest cell-phone prices in the world, with an average cost of 202 rupees ($4.19) for monthly phone rental and 1.99 rupees (4.1 cents) a minute for calls. That means a 300-minute monthly package costs around 800 rupees ($16.61). Cell phones still one in 100Land lines are also notoriously unreliable in India. But the mobile-phone market in India, with a population of 1.01 billion, is still way off the total in China, with a population of 1.27 billion. Only one in 100 Indians uses a cell phone. One in seven people uses a mobile phone in China, which has 190 million cell-phone users and recently passed the United States as the largest mobile market in the world. State-run BHNL -- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. -- accounted for a third of India's new customers, adding 275,000 callers. It now has licenses to operate throughout India, barring New Delhi and Mumbai. Growth is fastest in India's metro markets, which account for 3.88 million or 40 percent of the total. New Delhi just edges out Mumbai as the biggest of India's 22 cell-phone markets.
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