ITI tops in India's telecom turnkey business

BANGALORE: ITI, the state-owned telecom equipment major, has retained its dominant position in the country’s telecom turnkey business with revenues of Rs 1,401 Cr, according to the report of the annual survey of the Indian communications industry released by its leading business magazine Voice & Data for the year 2007.

ITI, with a market share of 38% is way ahead of GTL(20.3%), HFCL(15.6%), TCIL(8.17%) and UTL(5.3%). As per V&D estimates, the telecom turnkey industry grew by 30% to Rs 3,688 Cr during 2006-07 from Rs 2,837 Cr during the previous year.

“In ITI, equipment manufacturing, turnkey projects, maintenance and services from Defence, BSNL/MTNL, Railways and the public sector contributed for a large share of the income”, states the report, adding “Other achievements include productionisation of BTS(Base Transceiver System), TRX(Transceiver), shelter, towers, SMPS(Switch Mode Power Supply), antenna for GSM infrastructure and completion of Rs 372 Cr ASCON Phase-III project for the Army involving switches of ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) technology with microwave, OFC(Optic Fibre Communication) and satellite media”. “It is expected”, the report states, “that the Indian telecom subscriber base, including fixed wireless, will touch 265mn by March 2008, and turnkey players are upbeat about the growth.

This is clearly reflected in the order book position of some players. For instance, ITI orders in hand are Rs 1,130 Cr and turnkey orders are expected to be around Rs 3,480 Cr”. The V&D Survey identifies ITI’s key edge as its “unique solutions” of “very strong project management, system engineering, and installation and maintenance”.

“This is the fourth time that the Company has won top distinction, firmly establishing its proven leadership in the telecom turnkey segment, consequent on ITI’s repositioning strategy as a total telecom solutions provider in the convergence space”, says CMD ITI Pritam Singh.