440M and going strong

Overall Teledensity has crossed 41%. 10M subscribers are added everymonth and the overall subscriber base is just increasing like a Taxi meter:)
Max growth in the C Circle, which is expected.

I really wish India's Literacy rate also grows like this :) With the Mobile revolution coupled with easy access to Internet, and lots of e-learning institues that goverment is supproting, lets hope the literacy rate goes up!

M&A in Wireless Industry

The latest one on the block was Nortel....! Well, I feel the FIVE major players in the Wireless Industry are...
Semiconductor Industry -> The likes of NXP,ST,EMP (i.e ST-E) , TI, Broadcom(?) etc
Handset Manufacturers (OEM/ODM) -> Compal,Quanta, Nokia, Sony Ericsson etc
Handset Enablers! -> Symbian(Nokia), Android(Google), Windows Mobile (Microsoft)
Network Manufacturers ->Siemens,Nokia,Nortel, ( Nokia-Seimens), Alcatel,Lucent (ALU), Huawei
Network Operators -> Vodafone,T-Mobile, Airtel etc and
of course, how can we ignore the subscribers ( Like you and me!!) who keep all the above 5 guessing!!!!

Who would have imagined so many JVs/take-overs/mergers in this Industry alone. Will someone swallow Motorola ( At least the Handset group) OR will Sanjay show us some Magic!!

Have the M&As helped the new entities become profitable?

It would be interesting to see the HHI ( Herfindahl Hirschman Index) which is considered to be a good indicator of healthy competition within a country. In India, the HHI for the Operators is around 0.2. Not bad I guess. (0.15 to 0.17 is the best!)

Stable Government, what next?

Who imagined UPA to get such an emphatic win this time around! With UPA in full control, personally I would like to see some of the sick PSUs like ITI ( Indian Telephone Industries) revived. Stake sale OR someone like Tata OR Reliance to buy it out. It is such a pity to see ITI( once considered as a preimiere organization) slowly but steadily drowning!

Is it Raja OR Maran. Well! DMK appears to be destined to be driving the 3G Auction:-) . I hope the 3G auctions will be through soon.

India's next 100 Million subscribers!

According to a recent TRAI report, rural tele-density is about 12% while urban tele-density is 82%. China , for instance has more than 35% rural tele-density!
Next 100 OR 200 Million subscribers should indeed come from Rural and Semi-urban India! Operators will have to make innovative pitches to attract the rural India. Although the sentiment is negative due to the global recession and deflation here, I believe there is enough scope for growth in rural India. Operators need to pray for Adequate rainfall this year and the coming years :)

Will 3G make Biz Sense?

At the outset, I would like to thank my good friend B.S Murthy, CEO of leadership Capital and Mr Dilip, Editor at Deccan Herald for their support!!!

At least for the last 6 months, I have been wondering how 3G would fare in India. It was a wonderful experience right from my thought to write an article followed by gathering data, analysing and coming up with the draft version. Dr Sridhar ( a veteran of over 75 articles) helped in "weaving" the story together. The initial version was about 800 words and then we raised it to 998 words. Perhaps the only time I kept a close watch on the Word count provided in MS word:-) I must admit stuffing in "English" was not an easy task. It was absolutely unbelievable to see that the article (including title) getting published as-is unedited!!!
The response has been tremendous. Thanks to all the people who have sent their appreciation on the article. It is indeed a great feeling when you get appreciation mails from Unknown people. Definitely motivates me to try to write more articles.

Most of friends were more interested to know about the girl in the picture. Boyz will remain Boyz:-). BTW, let me re-assure all my friends that I had no role to play in choosing the picture.. Apparently, the editor spent a couple of hours in deciding the picture. Awesome.... eh...phone? :)

Click on the above image to read the article as printed OR follow the the link Will 3G make Biz Sense for e-version.

What next?

BSNL launches 3G

BSNL soft launching 3G will definitely get the other operators furious. The delay in Auctioning process and yet allowing BSNL to launch may give BSNL some undue advantage. This is true especially if the operators are allowed to roll out only in 2010.

3G- What is expected in India now?

Nothing much at least until the elections are through. Now with the global slowdown deepening by the day and considering this may not be the top most priority for the new Government, maybe the Auction would move into 2010. I hope my prediction is proven wrong.The best best is if the GoM tries to hurry-up the process and start the auctioning process immediately. But this looks very unlikely

The delay is similar to the TDS-CDMA spectrum allotment in China. After such a long wait, people started calling it as "T(edious) CDMA :)

Text Messaging. A Gold mine for operators

At the outset let me wish you a very happy and prosperous new year 2009!

I chanced upon an interesting article that a friend of mine sent... Approximately 2.5 Trillion Text messages (OR more popularly SMS) have been sent in 2008 world wide. This is expected to be 3.3 Trillion 2009.
What does it take for the Operators to transmit the text messages? close to nothing.. Why? Because the text message is capped at 160 characters and the transmission is on the control channel. Control channel is required for the handset to be "in touch" with the nearest Wireless Tower. Essentially, the control channel is required even if no text message is transmitted. Also, if you send or receive SMS while on a call , the SMS will be transmitted on the same voice channel. Again no additional overhead!!

As you are aware, most operators in the world depending on the country, charge any where between 15 to 20USD per Month unlimited SMS . It is extremely attractive for the subscribers. WoW that's very tempting like the "eat-as-much-as-you-can" OR unlimited food popular in restaurants.

The operators will surely be thanking all the subscribers in making SMS so successful as it adds to their bottom line! No wonder some of the well run Operators' Operating margin is in excess of 35%!!!

Why is 3G important in India

Well! the average 2G spectrum held by operators in India is about 7.5MHz while the international average is about 15MHz. Essentially there is not much spectrum left for growth in 2G. Voice will continue to be the revenue generator in the foreseeable future. Data services although looks promising, may not grow too much due to the unclear cost structure and lack of simple yet effective application for data .

It is still popular to club Messaging to be part of Data services. In a country like India, Data services contribute to about 12% of ARPU with significant portion coming from SMS alone.

WCDMA will be able to pack-in more than 2.5 times the subscribers per MHz compared to GSM and with enhanced voice quality. So, 3G becomes extremely important for any of the existing operators to grow.

Are we expecting some killer applications to swamp the market? Of course Yes, we will wait and watch but voice will be the leader even in 3G!

India's Wireless subsciber base 336.08 Million!

The subscriber data for November is out. 10.35 Million new subscibers have been added in the month of November [ record per month addition was in October '08 - 10.42Million!]

With this, India's Overall Telephone subscibers 374 Million. Overall Teledensity is 32.34%. Thats over 35% improvement in Teledensity since jan'08!

The Indian goverment has set a Target of 500Million Wireless subscribers by 2010. Atleast looking at the current growth rate, and even if we assume some slowdown in the coming 12 months, Target500 should be a reachable target!

Welcome to my blog!

At the outset, I would like to thank my good friend Ramprasad for motivating me start blogging
Ramprasad's blog http://facilitatingimpact.blogspot.com

Welcome to my blog. My interests include Wireless Mobile Domain, Stocks,Finance and Politics. I hope keep my blog updated regularly