BANGALORE, INDIA: Despite the increased
broadband focus and surfacing of plenteous multimedia applications, the Indian modem industry has failed to produce any significant result during the last financial year.
According to VOICE&DATA 100 estimates, the size of modem industry was pegged at Rs 356 crore at the end of FY 2008-09, as compared to Rs 390 crore in FY 2007-08, a significant decline of 8.7 percent. The industry is plagued by issues such as poor margins and lethargic R&D approach. Though there is a definite increase in demand, in terms of revenues, market does not seem to be very rosy.
Major players who are combating for the pie are Atrie Technology, Bharti Teletec, and D-Link. According to VOICE&DATA 100 estimates, Atrie Technology maintained its leadership position and recorded a 4.2 percent growth during FY 2008-09. The company sold around 2,92,500 units of modems during this period. The company has a large portfolio of clients which includes Canara Bank, MTNL, Syndicate Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, HFCL, Union Bank, Sify, etc.
Bharti Teletec held the second position with revenues of Rs 58 crore in FY 2008-09, a marginal 3.6 percent rise from FY 2007-08.
Most of the companies are now adopting the strategy of diversification and reducing their dependence on modem business. MRO-TEK, for instance is no longer into modems business any. Notably, the company was ranked third in the modems rankings for FY 2007-08.
D-Link India is focusing on Draft N technology and unified wireless solutions for mid to large deployments. D-Link India has its own R&D in India and this gives it the flexibility to offer customized solutions for service providers. It also claims to be the first company to introduce green networking and offers a complete line of green technology solutions.
With MRO-TEK out of business, D-Link automatically emerged as a third major player in the segment. The company recorded an estimated revenue of Rs 25 crore, showing a negative growth of 30% compared to FY 2007-08.
The other players in the fray include Dax Networks, Linkquest Telecom, Gemini Communication, Huawei, Sterlite Technologies, UTStarcom, etc.
At present, the industry is witnessing amplification of technologies such as leased line, dial-up, ADSL, ISDN, etc. Among the trends, the dial-up modem market continues to lose its long prevalent edge in the market. There has been a growing traction of the adoption of Ethernet and Wi-Fi modems in global market. In the current scenario, there is a huge demand for DSL modems from service providers who buy through tenders. This, however, results in vendors vying with each other to win the tender, leading to reduction of margins to such levels that it becomes extremely difficult to support the products.
The year gone by has seen a lot of discourse on the adoption of different wireless technologies in India. As the demand of mobility is reaching new heights, implementation of technologies such as WiMax and 3G are expected to become a new lifeline for the overall modem market. With WiMax, operators/carriers can save significant sum of cost with fewer base stations.
