India Overtakes the US
Back in February, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder, Chairman and Group CEO of India’s Bharti Enterprises was presented with the GSMA Chairman’s Award — the GSM Association’s most prestigious honor. This award, established in 1995, recognizes outstanding contributions to the growth and development of mobile communications around the world.
On presenting the award at the GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards evening — one of the highlights of the Mobile World Congress — in Barcelona’s National Palace, GSMA Chairman Craig Ehrlich said, “Sunil has built an incredibly successful business from scratch, one which has had a truly transformational impact on our industry, on the customers he serves and on India’s economy. His brave and ambitious strategies will continue to resonate across the country, our industry and the business community globally, becoming a benchmark for emerging markets worldwide.”
Bharti Airtel is now India’s leading private integrated telecom company. With an innovative outsourcing model that dedicates major resources to customer service and outsources the IT and the networks, Mittal was able to reduce tariffs from more than 20 cents a minute to less than two cents, catalyzing a real shift in the economic model for emerging markets.
Much of the developed world is unaware of the huge impact the Indian telecom market is having on mobile communications. India’s Telecoms Regulatory Authority (TRAI) has reported that a total of 8.49 million telephone connections have been added during February 2008. That put the total number of connections at 290.11 million. The total number of wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & WLL) stood at 250.93 million at the end of February 2008. At that level of growth, sometime during April, India is likely to become the second largest wireless network in the world after China, surpassing the USA. Additionally, in April, the total subscriber base (wireless + wireline) of India will cross the 300 million mark.
12 Million Subscribers to Mobile TV
Indian mobile phone users are ready for Mobile TV services with the potential market size estimated to be $360 million in 2008, according to a report from Springboard Research, “Mobile TV in India: Understanding the Mobile Entertainment Needs of Indian Users.” Mobile TV is a technology that allows people to view regular live television content on their mobile phones or other mobile devices that they get through traditional cable or pay TV subscriptions at home. The Springboard Research report found that in the first year of operation, mobile TV could reach a penetration level of 5 to 6 percent of the total mobile subscriber base in India.
“Mobile TV marries the two dominant consumption trends of entertainment and mobile telephony in India,” said Ravi Shekhar Pandey, Manager, Syndicated Research at Springboard Research. “The market is ripe for the launch of Mobile TV Services and we believe that India will have around 12 million mobile TV subscribers within the first year of launch of service.”
According to the report, 84 percent of mobile phone users are interested in using Mobile TV service provided the service is commonly available and affordable. Close to 60 percent of these will prefer watching the same content that they get on TV at home.
“A majority of mobile users in India are interested in trying out mobile TV and would invest in new handsets for using the service. This willingness is definitely a positive sign for those considering offering mobile TV in one of the world’s largest and fastest growing mobile services market,” added Pandey.
Public service broadcaster Doordarshan is the only company currently offering limited mobile TV service. The report adds that in recent months, the market has seen increased activities from various stakeholders including technology providers, network equipment vendors and mobile service providers. Nokia, Spice Telecom, Qualcomm and Samsung are a few of the stakeholders actively promoting the adoption of Mobile TV in India.
“Mobile telephone operators will have an advantage over standalone mobile TV operators in that the former already have users subscribing to their value-added services. However, the success of either operator will be dependent on content offered and price charged for the service,” said Pandey.
Among the recommendations as part of the report, service providers should offer an on-demand, pay-per-view option that does not tie a user to a monthly subscription for Mobile TV. Springboard also recommends close cooperation between mobile operators and broadcasters for a profitable business model.
SanDisk Expands Market Presence
The exponential growth of mobile phone users in India with their concurrent demand for flash memory storage cards has convinced SanDisk to enlarge its operations in the Indian market. SanDisk will not only increase its market presence, but the company will also be diversifying its product offerings. SanDisk’s expansion plans reflect the country’s growing demand for flash memory cards that are used in mobile phones, digital cameras, and digital music players, as well as new markets, such as digital camcorders and Solid State Drives (SSDs), which replace hard drives in notebook computers.
The company is the market share leader for flash memory cards and is capitalizing on its advanced Design Center in Bangalore and local distributor relationships to increase product offerings and brand awareness. To accomplish its expansion plan, SanDisk is partnering with Indian distributors Ingram Micro and Rashi Peripherals Pvt. Ltd.
“India is a key part of SanDisk’s global growth strategy,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, co-founder, president and chief operating officer of SanDisk Corporation. “The country’s solid economic and infrastructure growth creates tremendous market opportunity for SanDisk and we are expanding our retail presence and broadening our product portfolio. In addition, we are leveraging the advanced NAND flash memory design work of our SanDisk India Device Design Center to develop innovative flash technologies for India’s increasingly digitally-savvy population.”
SanDisk offers a broad range of flash memory-based products, with the mobile phone market representing the largest application segment. This market is expanding as more consumers gravitate toward phones that can play music, take high-resolution photos, access the Internet and play/record video.
Aarti Gahlaut, Assistant Manager, Peripherals Research, IDC India confirmed India’s upward market trajectory. “Our latest data shows a significant expansion in the memory card market in Q4 2007 with a 24 percent increase over the previous quarter.”
