India's Bhart Airtel has revealed its 3G subscriber base has grown to 600,000, on the same day it expanded 3G services to Mumbai.
The company, which launched 3G in its first city on January 25, told the Economic Times its 3G users were consuming over 1 terabyte of data per day in a single city.
The company is confident it can increase ARPU from 3G services, president of mobile services Atul Bindal told the paper, and hopes to increase the proportion of revenue earned from data services to “significantly” more than the 9% the segment contributes today.
Mumbai is the eleventh city Bharti has gone live in, and the company hopes to roll out to 29 more by the end of the month. The company hopes to cover 1,000 towns and cities by the end of FY12.
The company has installed 1,300 3G sites in what is India's financial hub, on top of the 3,100 2G sites already in the city.
Announcing the Mumbai launch, Bindal said Mumbai has the highest data penetration in the country at over 20%.
“The city of Mumbai truly represents the data revolution story that our country is currently witnessing,” he said.