It seems Airtel has struck a double deal. First the iPhone and now they are being tagged as an exclusive operator for HTC’s Android phone that will be unveiled today, which for the record will also be India’s long awaited Android offering.
The price is expected to be around Rs. 25,000 and I think it is in line with iPhone 3G’s price that will be after the launch of iPhone 3GS. Let’s hope HTC releases Magic and Airtel has decent data plans to support the phone.
Airtel and Vodafone, who jointly account for over 170 million of the 400 million cell phone users in the India, are all set to bring Apple’s latest iPhone, called the iPhone 3Gs to India. Apple which has exclusive tie-ups with Bharti and Vodafone has confirmed that their latest gadget will hit the Indian shores this August, however, they still haven’t given a word about its launch date or the pricing. [Read more…] about iPhone 3Gs to be officially launched by Airtel and Vodafone in August
Ok, we don’t know how consumers think about Airtel but one company does reckon they are the best service provider, not in India but the whole Asia-Pacific region. Frost and Sullivan, a US based telecom research and consultancy firm recently bestowed India’s largest telecom operator with this tag.
In a company statement this Tuesday, Bharti Airtel’s chief executive and joint managing director Manoj Kohli said, “Our company has been recognized for its overall service quality and has been adjudged the service provider of the year in the “Best of the Best” category. The awards recognise Bharti Airtel’s commitment to technology and business innovation, and globally benchmarked quality of services.”
Amongst others, Vietnam’s telecom major Viettel has been named as the best emerging markets’ service provider. Unfortunately, no other Indian telecom service provider made it to these awards.
This could spell some trouble for four of India’s biggest telecom operators. India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has ordered a special financial audit into the books of four telecom operators, including the country’s largest mobile phone service provider Bharti Airtel Ltd. and other big names like Tata Teleservices Ltd., Vodafone-Essar Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd.
The purpose behind this audit to check these operators’ revenue sharing with the government and to confirm if prescribed revenue sharing norms are being practiced. Telecom service providers in India are required to share between 6% and 10% of their annual revenue as license fees and 2% to 6% of their domestic and international long-distance telephony service revenues.
DoT has decided to appoint special auditors, who will be given up to three months to submit a final report. A similar special audit had earlier been ordered for RCom Ltd., and the auditor’s report is expected later this month. DoT has also ordered that if these operators are found guilty than they would be strictly penalized. The fiscal penalty will depend on the variation in shared revenues.
As of now, these four companies have not spoken to the media and Tata Teleservices and Vodafone-Essar claim to not have yet received an official communication on this matter.
Do you need a proof to know that Indian telecom is heavily shielded against recession? Month after month, GSM operators have added millions of subscribers and its 8.93 million for the month of April. The report includes major GSM players except Reliance who is said to report the figures separately. The total count now stands at 297.7 million GSM users in India and if we take Reliance into account we may be very close to the iconic 300m landmark.
Another good news is that India’s leading operator, Airtel added 2.81m users during the same tenure taking their subscriber base to 96.74m. Will they cross 100m in May or June? Start your petty bets.
This shouldn’t be surprising, right? In an analysis done by TRAI, Airtel has emerged as the most congested GSM network for the period of Oct-Dec. During this period, Airtel had 14 POIs (Point of Intersection) with congestion followed by Vodafone who had 12 and Reliance Communications and Idea with 11 each.
Note: POI signifies the ease with which a customer of one network is able to communicate with a customer of another network. This parameter also reflects as to how effective is the interconnection between two networks. TRAI has set a benchmark of less than 0.5 percent, which means out of 200 calls between two operators, there should be a single call facing a congestion problem.
Ed’s Note: Our overworked brains ditched us. Sorry for the goof up, we have added the plans and edited the story accordingly.
When TeleGyaan did an exclusive review of MTNL’s 2G/3G plans, one of our avid readers voiced his opinion and asked us to look at other operators in the landscape. Given the reader-friendly blog we are, here is a post comparing all the GSM – Blackberry plans on offer::
[Read more…] about Exclusive: All (GSM) Blackberry Plans reviewed
State-owner telco – BSNL is expected to offer Blackberry services from April. This move would help the operator gain an edge over the others. Here’s how::
However, the user base for the service is quite small and with Airtel and Vodafone providing ‘killer’ plans for Blackberry users, BSNL might just find it tough to compete against the private telcos. We expect BSNL to come up with some equally good plans to counter competition.
With the additions done and dealt with, let’s have a look at the market shares and user base of these GSM operators. Here it goes:
We Say: With Bharti adding the highest number of users to its kitty each month, it is unlikely that it will lose its position. However, Vodafone is trying its level best to reach closer by adding around the same number of users as Airtel. BSNL and Idea also seem to be battling it out for the third position. Though Reliance may seem to be a small player out here, it is adding large number of users each month and we expect to see it climbing up the rankings soon.
The month of February turned out to be quite positive for Indian Telecom, with GSM operators adding 9.18 mn users in the month. This has taken the total count to 277.11 mn. In percentage terms, the industry clocked a healthy growth rate of 3.43%.
Getting into specifics, here is how some operators contributed to the figure (additions and growth rate):
We Say: Going by the figures, nothing seems to be obstructing the growth of Indian Telecom, making it even more lucrative to more giants. However, we hope to see this growth accompanied by a simultaneous growth/ improvement in the management and service quality.