Idea crosses 150 million subscribers across India

Idea recorded the highest growth in Net Adds in the industry, with over 21 million subscribers joining the network in the calendar year 2014.

Idea’s unprecedented growth in the last five years has catapulted it to being the 6th largest operator globally, from being the 6th largest in India, in subscriber terms.

Idea added nearly 100 million subscribers in the last five years to cross the 150 million subscriber milestone, recently. During this period, Idea was the only operator in India to record over 1 percentage point increase in Revenue Market Share (RMS), YoY every year, the company said in a statement.

Commenting on this milestone, Ambrish Jain - Deputy Managing Director said, “Crossing the 150 million subscriber mark is a major milestone achievement for us and it has happened on the back of our rapid scale up of capacities and capabilities in the areas of Network, IT, Service Delivery, Distribution, and Human Resources. We are confident that Idea will continue to be ahead of the curve as we move into the next phase of growth driven by mobile data services.”

Idea has substantially increased its network capacity in the recent years. The company added 11,635 2G and 7,133 3G sites in the 12 months ending September 30th, 2014, and is consistently investing in optical fibre cable (OFC) transmission network to tap the future potential of wireless broadband needs of the growing customer base.

The company has rolled out over 87,600 km OFC network and has over 4,450 OFC PoPs (3G & 2G), across the country. The fibre backhaul network of the company optimally serves Idea’s 2G, 3G, NLD, ILD, ISP and Wireless Broadband needs. Idea has also introduced worlds’ latest high capacity 100G DWDM network technology to cater to the rising data demand.

The company has consistently invested in spectrum acquisition in the 900, 1800 and 2100 MHz bands in the last few years, and now holds a total of 259.5 MHz of spectrum.

Idea's constant focus on customer satisfaction through optimum service delivery has enabled Idea to remain the preferred mobile network for the subscribers. It has remained the MNP leader ever since the service was launched and has grossed over 11.6 million Net Adds till date.

Recognising the growing stature of the company on the global arena, the global GSM body, GSMA, recently elected Idea MD Himanshu Kapania into its Board, for a period of two years starting January 2015.