Cell Consolidation Sweeps India

Electronic News, July 10, 2000 by Uday Lal L Pai

BPL always stays ahead in technology adoption. Recently it has decided to invest between $5 million to $10 million to introduce a new technology that will let its customers access the Internet at high speeds. "We will introduce the WAP-GPRS technology (at the) latest by July," Rajiv said.

"BPL Mobile's Mobile Internet experience goes a step further than just providing voice and text messages. It is all about Internet access for real-time information on the mobile phone,'' Rajiv added.

However, post shopping-spree phase, Orange (formerly Max Touch) is set to emerge as the largest cellular service operator in the country. Once it competes the process of acquiring Usha Martin (Calcutta), Sterling Cellular (Delhi) and Fascel (Gujarat) the subscribers enrolled with Hutchison (Orange), will add up to a massive number, nearly 450,000.

Hutchison still has an impressive score of 294,512 subscribers in Delhi and Mumbai. Currently, it is the second largest cellular operator in the country, behind BPL, which according to the March figures, has 341,412 subscribers. However, with its post-acquisition score of nearly 450,000 subscribers, Hutchison would be way ahead of BPL, which operates cellular services in Mumbai (BPL Mobile), Tamil Nadu (BPL Cellular), Kerala (BPL Cellular), and Maharashtra (BPL Cellular).

Close on the tails of the two giants, is the current number three, Bharti Enterprises, with its total of 282,918 subscribers in March. Bharti Enterprises operates cellular services in Delhi (Bharti Cellular), Himachal Pradesh (Bharti Telenet), Andhra Pradesh (Bharti Mobile), and Karnataka (Bharti Mobile).

Fourth largest operator in the country is ModiCorp, which has also joined the elite club of companies to cross the 200,000 subscribers mark, said Dilip Modi, CEO of Spice Telecom. ModiCorp, which operates cellular services in Calcutta (Modi Telstra) and in Punjab and Karnataka (Spice Telecom) had a combined subscriber base of nearly 222,908 by the end of March. According to Modi, this figure had gone up to 250,000 at the end of April. Spice Telecom has also become the first company in the 'B' Circle to cross the 100,000-subscriber mark in Punjab, Modi said.

However, the tide seems to have turned for MNCs now. Private operators have been unshackled and financial institutions have also loosened their purse strings for the fund-starved projects. All this has unleashed a wave of consolidation across the cellular landscape. The foreign companies that have entered India through joint ventures also seem to be getting into the act.

For instance, British Telecom, one of the earliest to enter India through an alliance with Bharti, has now announced that it is looking for new partners. Similarly, the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa, which started with Bombay, is now expanding across the country and hopes to paint a large portion of the country Orange. Said an analyst with a leading investment banker, "Hutchison is not just a multinational with deep pockets, and it has a long-term strategy and a clear focus on wireless. It is the biggest challenger on the scene as it is now targeting non-metro circles as well." For its part, Hutchison is not disappointing analysts.