Top Cellular Players

Bharti Airtel* Vodafone Idea Rcom TTSL BSNL Aircel TTML Uninor MTS MTNL Loop Others

The Factors

Others include: Videocon, Quadrant Televentures, Stel and Etisalat

The Indian cellular services space offered a rather uncomfortable look the entire last fiscal. It seemed nothing really moved in this industry and the sector was seriously affected by the numerous unwanted and unhealthy factors throughout the year. One of the newest things for the Indian mobile services users—3G—was launched in the FY11, and it was expected and awaited by the Indian consumers that the 3G services would take flight and proliferate in FY12. But the entire last year did not see much action from the operators on 3G barring some marginal price cut in their tariff plans. A large chunk of the 900 mn plus Indian mobile subscribers are still not aware of what 3G can do for them or the utility of 3G services, though they just have heard of the word—an indication that telecom operators are not very keen on it. By the end of March 2011, there were just 20 mn 3G subscribers whereas the active user base is 40% of the total 3G subscriber base.

The second factor that gave a gloomy look to the Indian cellular business is the intense wait for the launch of 4G services. The wait was witnessed both by the consumers as well as the service providers. Consumers waited to witness the next phase of wireless broadband services that could theoretically give them up to 100 Mbps of download speed, and service providers waited because they wanted to take a decision on where they would put their investment in—3G or 4G? This dilemma affected the 3G services expansion and in turn affected the cellular business as a whole.

The third factor that had a detrimental impact on the industry was the controversy surrounded with the 2G spectrum auctioned earlier and the subsequent license cancellation by the apex court. In total, 8 operators and 122 licenses were affected. This harsh step made some operators shut shop in India and couple of threatening to quit business here. Operators who were mulling to infuse more funds to their expansion plans withheld their orders and preferred to wait and watch the policy clarity.

Lack of network expansion at a time of ever increasing consumer base affected the QoS and the net addition of mobile subscribers came down heavily. Last fiscal saw net subscriber addition averaging to 9 mn per month. In FY12, India added 107,583,952 new subscrib-