BANGALORE, INDIA: FY 2008-09 was a landmark year for the very small aperture terminal (VSAT) industry, especially the last three months.

The industry crossed 1,00,000 VSATs on the shared hub in Q4 . The total number of VSATs installed by the year-end stood at 1,01,773. The industry grew almost by 24 percent as the installed base in FY 2007-08 was 81,395 VSATs.

This growth was primarily driven by the government and BFSI segment. They are likely to be the key growth drivers in FY 2009-10 as well. The market size of the industry grew to Rs. 650 crore.

FY 2008-09 was phenomenal for the Bharti group. The company grew by more than 35 percent and its market share reached to 31% from 28.6 percent in FY 2007-08. It also grabbed the market leadership position from the pioneer Hughes, as far as number of VSATs are concerned. This was the second consecutive year when Bharti moved a step ahead in the leadership chart. During FY 2007-08, the company had outnumbered HCL.

Hughes' position dropped to #2 in FY 2008-09 as it had to shut down 2,850 VSATs during the year, otherwise it would have beaten Airtel this time as well. Among the 2,850 VSATs dropped last year, most were of lottery agents, who had either switched business or shut their shops as profitability went down in the lottery business.

The Leaders
By the end of FY 2008-09, the combined installation of Bharti Broadband and Bharti Airtel Bangalore-the two Bharti enterprise subsidiaries-stood at 31,739.

Bharti's core focus area for the year was government and BFSI segment. In a major project of the Gujarat government, the company connected as many as 13,693 villages in the state. It also received orders from common service centers (CSCs) program under e-governance, and BFSI.

Hughes' VSAT base, on the other hand, for FY 2008-09 was 30,011. The growth in the market remained flat to 31 percent, similar to that of FY 2007-08. The company installed as many as 7,397 VSATs in the year, but as it shut down a hub that ran 2,850 VSATs, the net number of installations on the shared hub came down to 4,547.

Hughes' satellite services revenue in FY 2008-09 was Rs. 140 crore, while the hardware revenue stood to Rs. 110 crore. The company's core focus for the year was BFSI and education segment. Some of the large projects to Hughes came from SREI of 7,500 VSAT's worth Rs. 35 crore. Bank of India and Canara Bank also placed an order of 1,200 VSATs each, worth Rs. 15 crore and Rs. 9 crore, respectively. The order from ISRO Edusat was only 500 VSATs but it was worth Rs. 15 crore.

The #3 slot was occupied by HCL Comnet, with 25,914 installations. Major clients of the company included United Bank of India, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, State Bank of India, Arunachal Pradesh SWAN, the Indian Army, Union Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, among others.