The telecom sector has been one of the fastest growing sectors in recent years in India. It is now the second largest telephone network in the world, after China. Tele-density, which shows the number of telephones per 100 persons, was 76.75 per cent at the end of October 2012. However with the growth of mobile telephony the number of landline telephones has declined from 32.17 million as on end March 2012 to 30.95 million as on 31 October 2012. Wireless telephones now account for 96.7 per cent of all telephones. After the Broadband Policy came into force in 2004, several measures have been taken to promote broadband penetration in the country. As a result, there were 22.86 million internet subscribers including 13.79 million broadband subscribers at the end of March 2012.
Broadband subscribers increased to 14.81 million by the end of this financial year. India is expected to have around 130.6 million mobile internet users by March 2014, according to a joint study by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB). The number of users accessing internet through mobile devices was 87.1 million in December 2012.
India's internet industry can contribute up to US$ 100 billion to India's gross domestic product (GDP) and generate about 22 million jobs by 2015. The Indian telecom industry's contribution is likely to increase upto 3.3 per cent of the country's GDP by 2015. The telecommunications industry in India attracted foreign direct investments (FDI) worth US$ 12,623 million between April 2000 to December 2012, an increase of 7 per cent to the total FDI inflows in terms of US$, according to the latest data published by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).
INDIAN TELECOM INDUSTRY AT A GLANCE IN 2012 - 2013 
