Expanding by eight million subscribers a month, the Indian market is poised to overtake the US as the second-largest mobile market by May this year. However, not all is well as operators scramble to boost ARPU and profitability to survive. While industry pundits are talking about a wave of consolidation and operators are searching for ways to differentiate, there is no stopping new operators from entering this space. That is because, even as ARPU is low, EBITDA margins are high Thanks to the high valuations of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications, investors that are flush with cash and in completely unrelated businesses are flocking to the sector.
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