SQ 416 was late by few minutes for its scheduled time at 10:30p. Next was a hassle-free checkout (Thanks to 9 pieces of luggage and two sleepy kids!) through the Green Channel of customs at the Kolkata International airport. The next stop had to be a roadside paan shop. I was carrying a burning desire to chew a paan on arrival.
So, we stopped. The paanwalla(click here for a a look-alike) was chatting on a shining mobile phone. On my arrival at his counter, I could hear him closing the conversation in his local dialect, “…Auron baad mein, kustomber hai”. Translated — Rest later, I have a customer. The counter, which was barely 10 feet by 10 feet also had leaflets of Reliance India Mobile prepaid cards stuck on the side of his wall.
Although, growth in the youth market has been fast last year symbolizing the breadth of the Indian Mobile phone customers; the depth of the market could be estimated when you see a paanwalla handling a mobile phone. A paanwalla could be characterized as someone with minimal or basic education, a non-incorporated small business, no taxes, and possibly without a postal address.
Thanks to popular schemes offering free incoming & intra-carrier calls; Indian users have been adding 1.5m – 1.7m new customers every month with an estimated base of 38 million users.