Indian Telecom Industry: What Next?

With over 700m subscribers already, Indian Telecom Operators are gearing for new paradigm for generating more revenues and improve the BOTTOM line. In my view, year 2011 or next 2-3 years will witness lot of activities in this space. Organisation would look for opportunity to grow and establish its base; I guess couple to potential areas to be looked into in near future would be- 1. Mobile banking-We have recently saw Mobile operator tieing up with the Indian banks to catch the race in this area, MB( Mobile banking) has huge potential , and can prove the differentiator in achieving the customer delight. 2. M&A- Consolidation would be the key brain teaser for Board of some of the Mobile operators when they will make future strategies for one’s organization. With tariff rate are already touching the bottom, there is little room on this to scale up the revenue. Still the 2G fiasco in on, the court slamming the penalty on the dubious licenses, delivered to some of the operator by DOT. Organization is fighting hard for break even and generating the revenue. These could lead to the road of mergers and consolidation in Indian Operator. Though still 30% of Indian population is un-mobile, yet it would be hard nut to crack for new Telco to serves them, while fighting against the BIG guns already in the fray. 3. Value Added Services(VAS)- This offering along with the MB would see lots of pressure and growth in the future. This space is still very niche and few organization commands .The huge chuck of companies expenditure would go on this.