India could double its number of mobile subscribers by 2012 to 650 million, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh predicted.

India is the world's fastest growing mobile market and had 325 million mobile phone subscribers at the end of October, so this is a huge leap. Singh told a telecommunications industry gathering that at this rate of growth, the total telecom subscriber base is expected to reach 700 million by the year 2012 with about 650 million mobile users and 50 million landlines.

India added more than 10.42 million new mobile users in October, while the rest of the economy collapsed. Subscribers were increasingly coming from rural areas, where fewer people own phones, Singh said.

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