Discussions on the mobile Internet space in India have always bordered on speculation - no one knows exactly how many handsets are data capable, how many users are using data services, how many are just on-deck with operator portals and how many have experienced the world wild web. We've heard anecdotes and bits and pieces of information, but little to provide a complete picture. Some examples: - Indians were the number one users of the now defunct Mosh from Nokia - India is now among the 10 most active users of Nokia's Ovi store - Airtel's App store saw 2.5 million application downloads in its first month - 20% of searches on Google India are from the mobile - Aircel's GPRS users grew from 30,000 in May 2009 to 1.7 million in October 2009, data revenues grew by 7 times between January and October 2010 There is probably more anecdotal evidence out there (please share more instances with us in the comments, and we'll update this list) But how many active data connections are there in India, whether limited to on-deck services (on operator portals alone), or the mobile Internet? According to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the total number is 149.09 million subscribers (we prefer the term 'connections'). The telecom operator-wise distribution is as follows: While we don't know how many of these are active users, or merely using on-deck operator portals, these do appear to be the number of 'activated' connections per telecom operator.…
