Chennai : Worried over the impending entry of a fourth player and the back-door entry of basic service providers onto cellular turf? Take heart: the market for mobile telephony has been growing at an exponential rate and in a growing market there is room for more players. Moreover, the expectations are that the industry would continue to grow in leaps and bounds in the years to come. Confident? No. Then read on. The all-India market for mobile telephony has crossed the benchmark three million in December 2000, a growth to the tune of six per cent on a month-on-month basis. According to the latest figures available, in December 2000, a whopping 1,71,590 connections were added to the all-India mobile telecom network taking the tally of mobile population to 31,07,449 compared to the previous month's figure of 29,35,859 connections. "A robust six per cent month-on-month growth augurs well for the industry.This will translate into an annualised growth of 40-50 per cent or even more," an industry insider predicts.Of course, that is even before the tariff cuts in metros like Delhi, where MTNL has entered the fray as a third service provider.The figures, however, suggest that there is a tapering off in growth in the metros while lower rung circles perform better. The C circle, which has been the laggard till recently, grew at double digits during the period but lies well below the benchmark one lakh mark. But Circle A is outpacing metros in growth with an impressive seven per cent increase during December last. A total number of 65,515 connections were added in this category, taking the total to 9,82,511, a tad lower than the one million threshold. Circle B has also performed well during the period with an additional 44,480 people going mobile taking the total mobile population to the tune of 8,38,415. The Mittals'-controlled Bharti Cellular is way ahead of its rival in New Delhi with 2,73,262 connections in its kitty.
Its competition Sterling Cellular is trailing far behind with connections aggregating 1,87,617. While in Mumbai, the BPL Mobile tops the list with 2,61,654 connections, Spice Telecom leads the pack in Kolkata with 90,132 connections. Mobile telephony: Ringing in new subscribers Among the metros, Chennai has turned out to be the laggard with total number of connections of both the players put together falls short of the one lakh mark.
While, RPG Cellular, the market leader, has just crossed the50,000-mark to reach 57,647 level, its rival Skycell, in which Bharti has a sizable interest, has only 38,577 connections. Industry watchers say that despite the slow start, the cellular telecom market in India is in for a boom with more and more people falling in love with the concept and going mobile. "The market will see an explosion once the fouth licencee too enters the fray.
Campaign clamours by the players will lead to high awareness level thereby increasing the market size," an industry watcher pointed out. However, he said, more than tariff, what is going to matter in the future is value-added services and customer satisfaction. Tariff, according to him, would have to come down once the TRAI reviews the interconnect agreement and allows the CPP regime. "In fact, a key factor that spurred the growth recently is the enhanced services offered by the operators in a bid to grab more market share. Besides, the softening of handset prices alsohelped the market grow," he added. Whatever, as long as the till keeps ringing.
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
