The expected explosion in telecom penetration and increasing popularity of smartphones would help telecom companies earn an additional USD 8 billion or Rs 50,000 crore in incremental revenues in the next three years, a report released by a consultancy firm said today.
The internet's contribution to pre-tax profits of telecom firms in the same period would be USD 2.9 billion, the report by AT Kearney's principal Ajay Gupta has estimated.
The consultancy firm AT Kearney was hired by online advertising giant Google to survey prospects for telecom companies due to the growth in penetration of mobile telephony and smartphones.
Ajay Gupta said that his company undertook a 15-city survey in which a bulk of the 3,500 people interviewed said that they looked forward to transacting more using mobile phones.
He said additional revenues would be driven by an upsurge in data usage and within that, the 'media content and services' category alone would account for USD 6.2 billion or 75 per cent of incremental revenues as well as stressed the need for media companies to generate content in regional Indian languages to seize the opportunity.
Google's industry director for telecom and technology, Neeraj Gupta said that Internet mobile users in the country would more than double to 480 million in 2017, from the present 155 million, resulting in more opportunities.
He said that since around 30 per cent of the total number of phones shipped are internet-enabled, various services would create multiple opportunities, beyond simple delivery of the network.
The survey did not consider the keenly awaited rollout of 4G services.
However, the consultancy firm's partner Nikolai Dobberstein said that introduction of 4G services would not have any bearing on its projections because all the services the report has taken into account could be delivered using the existing 3G network infrastructure.
Gupta said that other services which would deliver growth include adoption of online transactions and online resolution of customer problems, besides providing customised applications for small businesses to operate.
He said that a bulk of recharges, one of the major cost points for companies, happen offline and getting them online would help telecom players save costs since opportunities also exist on the payments front, which has been witnessing increased traction.
He said that small business units could look at a complete ecosystem of opportunity, beginning from selling handsets to customised software packages.
