Broadband growth still lagging targeted 20 Mn connections by 2010

Broadband growth still lagging targeted 20 Mn connections by 2010

The industry failed to achieve the Indian Government’s target of 20 million broadband connections by 2010 even by end of March, 2011, ending with just 11.87 million subscribers. Here also, the top 30 cities contributed nearly 60% to all the broadband subscribers.
The popularity of Value added services (VAS), that include the basic SMS, ring-tone downloads, navigation aids and mobile payment features, picked up during 2010-11. The vast potential of the Indian market kept the VAS providers on their toes to build content and services focused on the Indian market. The VAS business, fast growing in terms of number of players, is highly competitive leading to wafer thin margins. And with 3G services proliferating, this space is likely to get even more competitive and exciting.
The Top 10 Service Providers
Bharti Airtel, retained its position for the second consecutive year, by posting a growth of 42.1%, to end the fiscal with revenues of Rs. 59,467 crore. Vodafone Essar posted revenue of Rs 27,348 crore in FY11 from Rs 23,559 showing a healthy growth of 16.1% and emerged as the third largest player. Reporting a marginal growth of just 4.4% Reliance Communications was at No. 4 with revenues of Rs. 23,108 crore.
The leading public sector giant BSNL saw a drop in its revenues for the third consecutive year to end the year with Rs. 28,877 crore, a drop of 10% from its last year’s earnings of Rs 32,072 crore. Idea Cellular, Tata Communications and Tata Teleservices retained their slots at No. 5, 6 and 7 with revenues of Rs. 15,503 crore, Rs. 11,932 crore and Rs. 8,280 crore, respectively.
Aircel retained its No. 8 slot--by recording the highest growth of 44.1%--among the Top 10 players, to post revenue of Rs. 5,392 crore. MTNL’s revenue dropped nearly 22%—the biggest drop among the top 10 players--to post revenue of Rs. 3,951 crore at No 9.
Telecom Equipment market plunges 2.52%
Voice & Data had in June 2011 reported that the revenues of the Indian telecom equipment industry plunged 2.52% to touch Rs 1,17.039 crore in 2010-11, from Rs 1,20,069 crore in FY2009-10.
This together takes the size of the Telecom (equipment and services) industry size to Rs 283207 crore in 2010-11, up 7% from Rs 264669 crore reported in 2009-10.
The survey 'V&D 100' volume 1 covered over 500 telecom companies in India spanning carrier equipment, enterprise communication equipment, and user device manufacturers.
According to the annual telecom industry survey, the 16th from the specialty publishers CyberMedia, close to half of the telecom equipment revenue came from carrier equipment manufacturers, which saw a dip of 12.12% to touch Rs 58,294 crore during the year. In FY2009-10, the segment registered revenue of Rs 66,332 crore.

The enterprise equipment vertical grew at 0.87% to report revenues of Rs 24,023 crore for the same period from Rs 23,815 crore in FY2009-10. The user device segment that includes mobile handsets, fixed phones, data cards and tablets, contributed more than one-third to the total telecom equipment industry, at Rs 34,722 crore recording a growth of 16.04%.