28-09-2012, 03:13 PM
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY ON RELIANCE COMMUNICATION
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INTRODUCTION TO THE INDUSTRY
Bharti Airtel has the largest customer base with 31% market share, followed by Hutch and BSNL with each holding 22% market share.
The 2008 budget has brought further relief to the customers with the reduction in the tariffs, both local and long distance, and with slashing down the roaming rentals. This is likely to lead to even more people going for cellular services and more and more use of the value added services. However, landline telephony is likely to remain popular, too, in the foreseeable future. MTNL, the largest landline service provider, has recently taken some bold initiatives to retain its market share and, if possible, expand it.
The cellular phone industry is one of India's rapidly growing industries. Since the industry came into being in the mid 1990s, its average per annum growth rate has been a phenomenal 85 percent. By the end of 2008, the Indian cellular phone industry had over 10 million subscribers. The industry has undergone a number of changes over the years. The National Telecom Policy 1999 was an important landmark in the development of the cellular telecom industry in India; the tariff rationalization and policy regulation introduced in the Policy helped the industry grow at the pace it did. The years 2007 and 2008 saw an increase in level of competition in the industry with more operators being given licenses, and fixed line providers also entering the mobile market.
SEGMENT-WISE GROWTH
Wireless segment has emerged as the preferred mode of telephone service by the consumers, reflected in the rising share of mobile phone connections to total connections. The share of mobile phones has increased from 71.69 per cent at the end of March 2006 to 87.68 per cent at the end of May 2008. While total mobile subscriber base was 277.92 million, wire line subscriber base was 39.05 million.
Consequently, overall tele-density has increased to 27.59 per cent at the end of May 2008. India is likely to be second largest mobile market in the BRIC nations, with 560 million mobile users representing the next great growth curve for both mobile and interactive marketing industries, according to a report by eMarketers.
Also, private sector has become the dominant player in the industry. While public sector companies added 53.6 million subscribers during 1998-2007, private companies have added a whopping 133.58 million subscribers during the same period. The dominance has been much more pronounced in the mobile market, where private operators have added 124.68 million subscribers, while public sector operators added only 31.79 million subscribers.
INVESTMENT
The booming domestic telecom market has been attracting accelerating amount of investment. During April 2000 to March 2008, cumulative FDI inflows into the Indian telecommunications sector amounted to US$ 3.84 billion, accounting for 6.81 per cent of the total FDI inflows into the country.
In fact, the surge in mobile services market is likely to see investment worth about US$ 24 billion by 2010, going by industry estimates. This is understandable, when seen that the number of mobile subscribers is estimated to increase to 600 million by 2012, according to Standard Chartered Bank, implying a mobile in the hands of every second person in the country
The Bharti Group, which operates in 23 circles, continues to be the country's largest cellular operator, with 50 lakh subscribers. BSNL, which operates in 22 circles, has a subscriber base of 37 lakh subscribers. Thus BSNL stands second largest cellular operator in terms of subscriber base at the end of the fiscal ending March 31, 2007, displacing Vodafone from the second position.
INDIA FASTEST GROWING GSM MART
India is expected to have 145 million GSM (global system for mobile communications) customers by 2007-08 compared to 26 million subscribers as on March 2005, according to the Global Mobile Suppliers Association. "For GSM, India is a success story. It is one of the fastest growing markets with its subscriber base doubling in 2005. At this pace, the target of 150 million subscribers by 2007-2008 is definitely achievable," Alan Hadden, president of GSA, said at a news conference in New Delhi. Globally, the GSM market reached 1 billion users in February 2005, he said, adding GSM accounted for 80 per cent of the new subscriber growth in 2005."Almost every Latin American operator has chosen GSM. In North America GSM growth is bigger than CDMA (code division multiple access)," he said. Commenting on the raging debate over GSM versus CDMA in mobile services arena, Hadden said: "GSM is the world's most successful mobile standard with over 1 billion users, and is an open mobile standard. It also supports automatic international roaming, which is a major contributor to business plans."
INDIA’S GSM MOBILE FIRMS’ REVENUE UP 30 PCT
India’s private telecoms firms offering GSM-based mobile services reported a 24 percent rise in revenue in the year to March 2007 but said future growth rates could slow because of heavy taxes on the nascent industry. Although India’s mobile sector is the world’s fastest growing major wireless market, it is amongst the highest taxed industries in the country. Mobile carriers pay as much as 25 percent of their revenue as licence fee, spectrum charges and other taxes. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said revenue for fiscal 2003/04 stood at 83.08 billion rupees ($1.86 billion) compared with 64 billion rupees a year earlier. According to T.V. Ramachandran, director general at COAI, “These revenue growth rates cannot be maintained unless there is a concerted effort by the government to cut excessive levies and allow sharing of infrastructure”
THE CDMA CHALLENGE
CDMA players had launched their services with CDMA 2000 1X-based networks, which can give hi-speed, always-on connectivity to the Internet, and other data services. GSM operators, on the other hand, have had to migrate from the frustrating experience of WAP (wireless application protocol) to GPRS, which has not significantly improved the subscriber’s experience of surfing the Net on/from mobile.
The top brass of GSA, an organisation comprising Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson, Alcatel and Lucent Technologies - met on Tuesday in the capital to persuade the operators to adopt EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) and leave GPRS behind as a dream gone sour.
Will GSM maintain its headstart?
At the GSM Evolution Forum held in New Delhi, GSA president Alan Hadden predicted that GSM growth will far outstrip CDMA as was happening globally. He felt India could have as many as 200 million GSM subscribers by 2007-2008, up from nine million in December 2004. According to GSA, there are over 1.1 billion GSM subscribers worldwide as against 250 million CDMA customers. The revenue of top 25 global operators from data averages 18 per cent and 22 of these operators run GSM networks. Overall, there are 76 operators in 50 countries that have committed to deploy EDGE.