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More telecom giants eye Indian market

NEW DELHI: Top global telecom players are making a beeline to enter the Indian mobile market, the fastest growing market today in terms of monthly subscriber addition and revenue generation. While three players — Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, Norway’s Telenor and UAE’s Etisalat — have recently entered the Indian market, many more are in talks with new licensees for joint venture initiatives. It is the spurt in the mobile subscriber base, where 80-lakh subscribers are added every month and there are endless opportunities in forthcoming 3G and 4G (third and fourth generation mobile technologies) services, that is prompting these telecom giants to eye the Indian market, which is set to grow from a 30-crore subscriber base to 70 crore by 2012 when the revenue would be around a whopping $35 billion.

More international players seeking an India entry include the Kuwait-based Zain Group, Qatar Telecom, Bahrain Telecom, Italy-based Telecom Italia SpA and South Africa ’s MTN Group.

Telecom analysts feel that those who have entered the market would further try to consolidate their position to emerge as strong players.

It all started last year with the entry of Vodafone, one of the world’s largest telecom players, by acquiring a majority stake of Hutchinson for $11 billion to convert Hutch-Essar to Vodafone-Essar.

According to Bundeep Singh Rangar, Chairman of IndusView Advisors, the India-focussed cross-border advisory firm, “Recent investments by top global players expose the potential for inorganic activity in a market that is otherwise considered to be crowded but has a tele-density of less than 30 per cent, signifying the expected growth potential in the sector.”

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