Webchutney, one of the top digital agencies in India, today announced the launch of its mobile marketing arm Culture Mafia. The firm will be a full service independent mobile agency, which will integrate mobile marketing, advertising, and mobile interest development.

The Indian mobile market’s growth is said to be 60% year over year, according to Manish Vij of Quasar. The market is thriving, even under these harsh economic conditions, adding an approximate 10 million subscribers per month. The latest report by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India states that India has a teledensity of 33 percent and 347 million mobile subscribers as of December 2008. The market is expected to expand to 500 million subscribers by 2010.

This, on top of a new report from the UN on how the world’s poor drive growth in global cell use, may explain why Webchutney  and other marketing firms are leaping into the Indian mobile market.

By the end of last year there were an estimated 4.1 billion subscriptions globally, compared with about 1 billion in 2002, the International Telecommunication Union said. Fixed line subscriptions increased at a much slower pace to 1.27 billion from about 1 billion over the same period.

Also announced today, MRM Worldwide, the digital arm of McCann Worldgroup, plans to acquire stakes in small firms involved in digital marketing, including digital design studios, search marketing and mobile marketing entities to concentrate on its interactive marketing capabilities in India.