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India Telecommunications Report Q3 2009Product Type: Market Research ReportPublished by: Business Monitor International Published: July 2009 Product Code: R302-6979 Description Our latest update on India’s telecommunications market contains expanded coverage of the country’sfixed-line and broadband sectors. We have also included a summary table depicting some of the sector’srecent contract wins. According to India’s telecoms regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI), the country had 12.85mn internet subscribers at the end of 2008. Although this is equivalent tojust 1.1% of the country’s population, TRAI reported that the number of subscribers grew by 24% duringthe year. Although the number of Broadband subscribers grew by 76.5% in 2008, they still onlyaccounted for 0.5% of the country’s population at the end of the year.BMI has revised its forecast for the growth of India’s broadband market over the next five years. Wepredict that an annual average growth rate of 66% will help raise the penetration rate to 5.5% by 2013.Alternative broadband infrastructures such as WiMAX will play a key role in driving the growth of themarket. BMI predicts that WiMAX will become the main platform for delivering internet connectivity inrural India, especially given the inadequate state of the country’s fixed-line infrastructure. At the end of2008, India’s fixed-line penetration rate was a mere 3.2%, down from 3.4% at the end of 2007. Although India’s broadband market continues to be dominated by state-owned operator Bharat SancharNigam (BSNL), privately owned Bharti Airtel had a 13.7% market share at the end of 2008. Otheroperators, including cable operator Hathway Cable and CDMA operator Tata Communications, alsohave significant shares of the broadband market. As Bharti and Tata invest in the deployment of WiMAXnetworks, their market shares are expected to rise. Meanwhile, as noted in our previous report, India had a mobile subscriber base of 346.894mn at the endof 2008, up by 48.5% y-o-y. Along with Bharti Airtel, recent growth has been driven mainly by RelianceCommunications and Vodafone Essar. However, smaller operators such as Tata and IDEA Cellularalso made impressive subscriber gains during 2008.One of the main uncertainties currently overhanging the Indian mobile market is the future of 3Glicensing. In February 2009, India’s army reportedly claimed that it was unable to release spectrumneeded for commercial 3G services in a phased manner as had previously been agreed. The armed forcesare in possession of spectrum which is expected to be vacated, and reallocated to successful 3G licensees. India remains in eighth place in BMI’s Business Environment Rankings for Asia. Despite its weak scoresin the country structure and country risk categories, India has the second-highest telecoms market ratingin the region, with only Japan scoring higher. Table of Contents
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