India is the second largest CDMA market

India has become only the second country in the world to have more than 100 million CDMA-based (code division multiple access) mobile phone subscribers after the US, which has 157 million CDMA users. While India overtook China to become the second-largest CDMA market, the country’s leading service provider Reliance Communications (RCOM) has become the second-largest CDMA service provider behind the USA’s Verizon Wireless, the CDMA Development Group (CDG) said on Thursday. Tata Teleservices is ranked fourth in the list of top global players, behind China Telecom. It took CDMA, which competes with the GSM (global system of mobile communication) platform globally, six-anda-half years to reach the 100 million mark in India after being introduced in December 2002.GSM is much more popular, accounting for 80% of the global market, according to its promoter GSM Association. While there are 475 million CDMA users in the world, GSM standard is being used by over three billion people. In India, the GSM user base is close to 300 million. CDG executive director Perry LaForge attributed the rapid growth of CDMA users in India to a wide selection of affordable devices and technologies offering CDMA voice and data services in urban and rural areas. “CDMA allows a rich telecom experience, especially on the data side, and we are confident that experience will only get better, especially as 3G arrives and we are able to unleash the full potential of applications and services,” Tata Tele MD Anil Sardana said.