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Private operators dominate telecom market:V&D survey

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

NEW DELHI: Private operators accounted for 43 percent of the total telecom services revenue in FY 2004-05 in the Indian telecom market. The overall telecom services industry in the country grew 16 percent from Rs 58,741 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 68,069 crore in 2004-05.

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Cellular services continued to thrive, growing at 63 percent in FY 04-05, according to V&D100 2005, the tenth Indian Telecom Industry Report (Vol II) released by VOICE&DATA-the leading communications business magazine.

However, fixed services posted a negative growth of one percent, though it still makes up for the biggest chunk (48 percent) of the telecom services market.

According to the report, national long distance (NLD) services grew by 22 percent while international long distance (ILD) slipped 12 percent. Despite the hype about broadband, the Internet services managed a paltry one percent growth. VSAT services posted a growth of 29 percent, while radio trunking services went up by four percent.

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The cellular industry grew by more than 50 percent in both revenue terms as well as the number of subscribers. 17.9 million mobile lines were added in FY 2004-05, of which GSM contributed around 14.8 million lines whereas CDMA contributed around 3.1 million lines.

The mobile industry is estimated to be around Rs 23,284 crore ($5.2 billion) in FY 2004—05, an increase of 63 percent. Last year, the Indian mobile industry, as per V&D estimates, was around Rs 14,267 crore ($3.2 billion). In subscriber terms, Bharti led the race with 10.98 million, followed by Reliance with 10.45 million, and BSNL had around 10.16 million. In revenue terms, Bharti led the pack, followed by Hutch, Reliance, and BSNL.

In FY 2004—05, Bharti netted revenue of Rs 5,436 crore in FY 2004-05, up 67 percent from Rs 3,261 crore in FY 2003-04. Hutch posted revenue of Rs 4,365 crore in FY 2004-05.

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BSNL and MTNL were hit hard during FY 2004-05, even as fixed services posted a negative growth of one percent. BSNL and MTNL's total subscriber base went down two percent and six percent respectively while that of Tata Teleservices and Reliance Infocomm grew 174 percent and 160 percent respectively.

The fixed phone subscriber base of the country grew 4.22 percent in FY 2004-05. In FY2003-04, it had grown at 5.6 percent. Private operators added around 2.7 million fixed lines subscriber in 2004-05.

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