About seven months ago India-based mHealth service provider mDhil said it had more than 150,000 paid users of its public health text message service. mDhil CEO and Founder Nandu Madhava told MobiHealthNews at the Mobile Healthcare Industry Summit in London that the service now counts more than 250,000 paid users. About 50,000 users are returning on a monthly basis, Madhava said. mDhil's text messages include information on various health topics, including: diabetes, H1N1, maternal health, female reproduction and male reproduction. In India some of these topics, particularly sexual health topics are not commonly discussed openly, which helps drive uptake of the service. mDhil charges approximately 65 cents per message month, but the startup's partners, namely mobile operators like Idea Cellular, Airtel and Reliance take a substantial cut of revenue from each message sent monthly subscription.

In February Madhava had said the mDhil team was working toward 1 million users by year end, with a few months to the startup has ramped up its user base by more than 100,000 -- a bit short of the ambitious 2010 goal.

As the usage of mobile internet service skyrocket in India, mDhil is now looking to move beyond simple text messaging to begin offering apps and original video content. During his presentation at the London event, Madhava pointed to the growth in the number of advertisements served to mobile Internet users worldwide. India ranks second only after the US in the greatest number of ads served, but what's more fascinating is that the number of ads served to mobile users in India has increased more than 250 percent in the past five months. By proxy, it's likely mobile Internet usage has increased by a similar factor in that country.