Vodafone tops subscribers’ addition chart in Feb (India)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Indian telco Vodafone Essar became the world’s fastest-growing telecom market by adding the highest number of mobile users in the country last month, thus beating the current market leader, Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices.
With the addition of over 3 million new users, Vodafone Essar’s total subscriber base in India rose to 97.2 million. However, with 124.6 million subscribers, Bharti remained the largest player, adding 2.9 million last month. 2.8 million New users were signed by Tata Teleservices but slipped to third spot after topping subscriber additions for over six months.
2.8 million New users have been added by Reliance Communications; over 2 million new subscribers have been added by Idea- spice while Aircel added 1.8 million new users. 1.7 million new mobile users were roped in by BSNL and MTNL, both state owned telco.
Wireline segment saw a fall of 1% in the subscriber base to 36.96 million in February led by BSNL and MTNL. However, private players like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices were better off in wireline segment too by adding users.
9 applications for 3G & 11 for BWA auction received by Indian govt
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Eleven applications for the BWA spectrum auction along with nine applications for the upcoming 3G spectrum auction has been received by the Indian government.
Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Etisalat, Idea Cellular, Reliance Telecom, S Tel, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone Essar, and Videocon Telecommunications are included in the list of the bidders for 3G spectrum.
The list of applicants for BWA spectrum include Aircel, Augere, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Infotel Broadband Services, Qualcomm, Reliance WiMax, Spice Internet Service Provider, Tata Communications Internet Services, Tikona Digital Networks, and Vodafone Essar.
April 5 and 6 has been planned as the dates for mock auctions while on April 9, actual bidding process will take place. Two days after the completion of the 3G spectrum auction, auctions for BWA license will be conducted.
Roaming charges on Vodafone reduced by 50% in India
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Adding a new spice to the latest tariff war in the world’s fastest-growing cellular market, India, Vodafone Essar, reduced its roaming charges by more than 50% besides offering the option for per-second pulse.
The pay per second plan launched by TATA DoCoMo has made the other operators to join the war. Some are even coming up with other lucrative plans like 50 paise per minute, for all types of calls, local as well as roaming by Reliance Communications and to 60 paisa per minute roaming charges by Bharti Airtel.
Though the customers are benefiting a lot from this tariff war, the mobile operators are losing out on revenues. The stock prices of listed telecom operators like Bharti Airtel, RelCom and others are sliding.
One of the major reasons behind this war is to attract the new users as new operators are entering the market. Norway’s Telenor launch made it the 12th operator playing in the Indian market while, Arab’s second-biggest carrier Etisalat is planning to enter India.
ZTE to market $20 mobiles in India
ZTE has entered the Indian retail market as a standalone player.
It is hoping to hike the contribution of the Indian market to its global handset sales would go up to 20 per cent from the existing 16 per cent.
ZTE India Chairman & Managing Director D K Ghosh said in a statement that India is a key focus market for ZTE.
The company has launched a range of low-cost GSM handsets — S315, A261, R220, R230 and R230BT at price points ranging from USD 20 to USD 80. ZTE has sold over 20 million handsets in India through operator partnerships . It is targeting a network of 100,000 retail outlets in India by this year-end.
The company has appointed “Overseas Mobiles” as its national distributor. Overseas Mobiles will be appointing 80 regional distributors across India and will manage relationships with distributors and corporate customers on behalf of ZTE.
With global sales of over 100 million handsets last year, ZTE is currently the sixth-largest handset manufacturer in the world. It has established partnerships with mobile operators like Vodafone, Hutchison Whampoa, Telefonica globally and BSNL, Reliance, Tata, Vodafone, Spice Telecom and Aircel in India.
Mega telecom partnerships
In one of the biggest network management and rollout deals globally,
‘s largest GSM operator, Bharti Airtel, has awarded Swedish telecom equipment vendor, Ericsson, a $1 billion outsourcing contract for network management services. Deals such as this, along with the hyper growth, have propelled our telecom sector and operators into global limelight. High sunk costs, rapid technological advances, high obsolescence and intense competition are some reasons for these mega deals and consolidation in the industry.Market access is a prime motive for such partnerships. Vodafone acquired a 10% stake in Bharti for Rs 6,500 crore to get a foothold in the Indian market to expand its worldwide presence. Conversely, Indian companies are eyeing companies outside to expand their access. Tatas recently invested $60 million for a 26% stake in InfraCo, an emerging domestic and international fiber-optic carrier in
. VSNL acquired Teleglobe International, a provider of wholesale voice, data, internet and mobile signaling services for $239 mn, to get access to Teleglobe’s network spanning the globe and having capacity in more than 80 sub-sea and terrestrial cables.
Reliance’s $211 mn acquisition of FLAG, VSNLs $136 mn acquisition of Tyco Global Network, and Bharti’s 8% acquisition in the $500 mn, 20,000 km, next generation undersea cable system SEA-ME-WE-4 project reflect the same intent.
The government-owned MTNL, after a successful foray into
, is actively looking at other markets, including
. Both Reliance and Bharti are in the race for the fifth mobile operator license in
. Since telecom requires large investment in developing networks, apart from market access, many companies try to achieve economies of scale and scope by buying networks from existing service providers. According to Stanley Sigman, the CEO of Cingular in the
, one of the main reasons for him taking over AT&T Wireless in 2004, in a whopping $41 bn deal, was to combine assets of these two companies to take advantage of economies of scale to be the best in the class. We witnessed Tata Teleservices buying Hughes.net to gain access to the basic services market in. Bharti acquired stakes in JT Mobile, Spice and Hexacom to get entry to the Andhra, Karnataka andcircles. In July last year, Essar scooped BPL Communications for Rs 4,400 cr to consolidate its market position in Mumbai,,,and
. Through its $66 mn acquisition of Escotel in January 2004, Idea not only gained the Haryana, Kerala and UP(W) networks of Escotel, but also acquired market access to Rajasthan and HP.
Similarly, VSNL acquired Dishnet in March 2004 for Rs 270 crore to get access to Dishnet’s subscriber base and nationwide network of cyber cafes. VSNL also acquired Tyco Global Network for $130 mn for supplementing its submarine cable-based bandwidth services.
The third major factor for the partnerships in telecom is for companies to have control over emerging technologies. Bharti’s mega deals, of outsourcing its entire network management and operations to Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens, are an example.
A reason is to transfer technology obsolescence and infrastructure upgrading risk to equipment manufacturers. Hutch followed with the outsourcing deal with Nokia. The motive behind the surprise acquisition of a 51% stake by Reliance Capital in Adlabs Films for Rs 360 cr is to use Reliance Infocomm’s nationwide fibre optic network for the digital distribution of movies produced by Adlabs.
Tech companies with niche specialisation such as Sasken Communications Technologies that builds mobile multimedia applications and codec engines, Subex Systems which specialise in advanced telecom fraud management products might well be targets for acquisitions in near future.
While we have been witnessing the above partnerships, the fourth dimension to the partnership is emerging.Technology-intensive companies are also pursuing partnerships with hedging as the main value objective. Companies are getting a stake in technologies unrelated to the core business promise. Notable ones being the recent acquisition of Luxembourg-based Skype Technologies SA, the global internet communications company, by the worlds largest online auction company, eBay, for approximately $2.6 bn.
eBay claims this brings into its e-auction business a powerful communication engine, capable of opening new lines of businesses, new monetisation models and geographies, among other things.
This euphoria over emerging technologies and associated businesses is similar to the ones witnessed over the dotcoms in the mid-90s. Whether this momentum will continue is anyone’s guess.
While telecom companies in
,
and theare vying to acquire companies outside their countries at astronomical prices, global giants such as Vodafone are divesting their stake in foreign telcos. Vodafone terminated its Japanese mobile telecom business by selling it to Softbank for $8.9 bn and is even planning to exit from the
operator, Verizon. The telecom bubble that burst and left big holes in the
telecom industry, notable ones being AOL-Time Warner, and MCI-WorldCom, is slowly gaining momentum again.
The Indian telecom scenario, as we have seen, is also abuzz with hyper growth, with associated consolidations and new partnerships. Let us hope this one,unlike the dotcom burst, is a sustainable bubble in the making!
Source- http://www.financialexpress.com
Technorati : Bharti Airtel, Ericsson, GSM, MTNL, Mobile, Reliance
Ice Rocket : Bharti Airtel, Ericsson, GSM, MTNL, Mobile, Reliance
