Government has set a target of having 250 million telephone users by the end of next year but the country has a "long way to go" on phone exports with tele-density being only 22 per cent, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
"Since the United Progressive Alliance government came to power, the number of telephone users has doubled from 75 million to 150 million and the figure is going up with 4.5 to five million subsribers joining every month. Our target is to have 250 million by the end of next year," IT and Communication Minister Dayanidhi Maran said during Question Hour.
The minister was replying to a question on whether India will be able to match with regard to telephone users in China where the figure was ten times higher.
Observing that the IT industry was growing at 30 per cent per annum, Maran said India has a "long way to go" on the export front with tele-density in the country being only 22
per cent.
To another question, he said, at present, the demand for wireless phones was higher than landline ones as mobile telephones worked out cheaper.
The demand in future will relate to mobile phones, he said.
On indigenous manufacturing of telephones, Maran said Finland-based cellular phone giant Nokia has set up a factory in India with a capacity of two million phones per year and other key players like American firm Motorola and Korean companies Samsung and LG were in the process of installing units to produce phones.
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