The Indian telecom services industry revenues grew by 21.3% to touch Rs. 130,561 crore in 2007-08 as it its subscriber base grew by 66% to add 100 million new subscribers, according to CyberMedia’s Voice&Data annual survey of the telecom industry. 

The revenues of cellular, fixed line, National Long Distance (NLD), International Long Distance (ILD), Broadband, VSAT and radio trunking were added to calculate the size of the Indian telecom services industry. 

Cellular revenue contributed a major chunk of telecom services revenue followed by fixed line and ILD. According to the 13th annual V&D100 survey, around 59% of the telecom services revenue came from cellular business that touched Rs. 76,608 crore in FY 2007-08. This represents a growth of over 36.4% over Rs. 56,183 crore earned in the previous year. 

Significantly, the majority of new subscribers are now coming from towns and villages with populations of less than 20,000. The mobile network now covers over half of the nearly 6,00,000 towns and villages. The mobile services can now be bought from nearly a million outlets—a number that far exceeds the number of FMCG or even the postal outlets. Expansion into rural areas, lowering entry price of owning a handset through attractive offers and customer retention efforts helped ramp up subscriber-base and revenues. 

Fixed line revenues drop 11.6%, ILD revenues flat on growing volumes 
The second biggest contributor to the telecom services business was the fixed line contributing 20.4% to the entire services business. The fixed line business, however, recorded a de growth of 11.6% to reach Rs. 26,692 crore in FY 2007-08 from Rs. 30,190 crore in FY 2006-07. 

ILD, on the other hand, contributed around 8.8% of the telecom services to touch revenues of Rs. 11,532 crore in the last financial year, up from Rs. 11,506 crore in FY 2006-07. NLD segment grew at 35.4% to contribute about 7.5% to the telecom services business with revenue of Rs. 9,732 crore in FY 2007-08 up from Rs. 7,186 crore in FY 2006-07. 

Broadband subscribers up 56% to 3.9 mn, revenue up 163% to Rs. 5,359 cr 
Broadband showed a phenomenal growth of 162.7% to touch the revenue of Rs. 5,359 crore in FY 2007-08 from Rs. 2,040 crore in FY 2006-07. Though the revenue from broadband saw a robust growth, this is not true for the subscriber base. The subscriber base grew from 2.5 mn in FY 2006-07 to 3.9 mn in FY 2007-08. VSAT and Radio Trunking together contributed 0.5% to the telecom services revenue. 

A booming economy, easing of entry barriers to mobile access and lowering of tariffs fuelled the growth in a year when the country added over 104 million new subscribers making India the second fastest growing telecom market in the world. Recent government policies aimed at creating affordable connectivity for common man across the country also served as a catalyst.

Source: Voice&Data Review of the Indian Telecom Industry 2007-08

Commenting on the telecom revolution in the country, Mr. Prasanto K Roy, Chief Editor of CyberMedia’s business publications said, “With India’s telecom tariffs still the lowest in the world, there’s enormous and sustained growth beyond the metros. So telcos see huge opportunity in the three-fourths of Indians still untouched by the mobile phone revolution. They need to keep leveraging SMS, data, and other value added services, and finding other innovative ways of remaining profitable despite the low and falling ARPU (average revenue per user).”

“The year ahead needs to see some pending issues settled for telecom: such as the introduction of 3G and number portability in the mobile arena, and the abysmally low broadband penetration, in the fixed-line space,” adds Mr. Roy.

One in 4 Indians now has a phone
The total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA and WLL) base stood at around 261 mn by the end of FY 2007-08. The wireless teledensity is now at more than 22%, which contributes a large chunk to the overall teledensity of over 25%. 

The Top 10 by Revenue
The top five players in FY 2006-07 retained their positions in the year under review. Even with a 12.1% decline in revenues, BSNL hung on to its No. 1 position with revenue of Rs. 35,296 crore. Bharti Airtel with revenue of Rs. 26,436 crore is at the second spot. Reliance Communications and Vodafone with revenue of Rs. 18,638 crore and Rs. 15,477 crore are at No 3 and 4 respectively. 

Source: Voice&Data Review of the Indian Telecom Industry 2007-08

Idea Cellular has moved to No.6 in FY 2007-08 from No. 8 in FY 2006-07 with revenue of Rs. 6,720 crore. Tata Teleservices has come down to No 7 and MTNL slipped 7th position in 2006-07 to No 8. 

The top 5 players based on cellular subscriber base were Bharti (62 million), Reliance (46 million), Vodafone (44 million), BSNL (41 million) and Idea cellular (24 million).

About V&D100
V&D100 is the most comprehensive annual survey of the Indian equipment industries and telecom services. It is the most trusted and widely used survey for those seeking authentic information on Indian communications. It is also the most comprehensive, as it covers a wide range of segments and is the only 'single source' of such diverse information. 

About CyberMedia 
CyberMedia is South Asia's first and largest specialty media house, with fifteen publications (including BioSpectrum, Dare, Dataquest, PCQuest, Voice&Data, and Global Services) in the information technology, telecom, consumer electronics, and biotech areas, and is a media value chain including
Internet (www.ciol.com), events, and television. The group's media services include market research (IDC India), job board (tech job portal), content management and multimedia. 

For media queries, please contact:
Sanjiv Kataria
Strategic Communications and PR Counsel
+91 98100 48095
Email: ‘ Sanjiv dot Kataria at gmail dot com’