Hutch Max lines up Rs 1800 crore investment

Mumbai, Delhi to get Rs 300 crore each

Hutchison Max Telecom plans to invest Rs 1,800 crore in calendar year 2004. Of this, the company intends to invest Rs 300 crore each in Mumbai and Delhi towards expanding the network infrastructure and improving the coverage footprint across the circle.

The company, the biggest cellular service provider in Mumbai, has set targets to enhance its network capacity to 1.7 million customers by commissioning a fifth switch in Mumbai circle, triple SMS handling capacity and launch EDGE to enhance data throughput in 2004 for Mumbai circle.

The company's operating investments in Mumbai is up 20 per cent to Rs 300 crore in fiscal year 2004 compared with Rs 250 crore invested in fiscal 2003.

Speaking to Business Standard, Harit Nagpal, vice-president, corporate marketing, Hutchison Max, said, "We are investing Rs 300 crore in Mumbai to boost capacity of the network to 1.7 million customers. We have always made investments foreseeing requirements."

"For Hutchison Essar affiliates, the year 2003 is closing with a bang. We have achieved three milestones "" crossed one million mark each in Mumbai and Delhi and overall the group crossed four million mark across the country," Nagpal added.

The market size, as on November 30, stood at 2.37 million in Mumbai and 2.81 million in Delhi.

Hutchison Essar operates cellular services currently in 10 circles covering 70 per cent of the country's purchasing power "" Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Haryana and UP (east).

With falling tariff rates and free incoming calls, the overall telecom subscriber base is on the upswing. Besides, the average minutes of usage per subscriber has almost doubled.

Nagpal pointed out that on an average, the talktime in 2003 has gone up from 350 minutes to 700 minutes. In fact, it has more than doubled in the case of pre-paid subscribers.

There has been an increase in the number of pre-paid subscribers. In Mumbai, pre-paid to post-paid subscribers ratio is 75:25.

According to Cellular Operator's Association of India (COAI), the new subscribers are adding to the pre-paid subscriber list across the country.

"There has been no compromise on the average revenue per user (ARPU) when getting the number of one million mark. We have the highest blended ARPU (post-paid and pre-paid) in Mumbai at Rs 768," Nagpal pointed out.

Increasing talktime, fall in the tariff and free incoming calls has not only resulted in increase in minutes of usage per customer but also lead to the expansion of the market.

"The market is far from stagnating as of now. In fact, all the service providers are growing and the market is expanding," he added.

To improve voice quality, Orange has successfully deployed, "Intelligent Optimisation Service", a cutting edge technology software from Motorola, its release said.

This provides optimal use of spectrum, leading to a superior voice quality.

To enhance its data services and allow a better throughput, Hutchison Essar will soon launch EDGE as a countrywide initiative.

The investment in Mumbai alone will be around Rs 20 crore for the project, the release added.