Indian telecom equipment mart at Rs 53,000 cr

TELECOM: Handsets push growth as infrastructure slows down.

The telecom equipment market grew at a relatively normal rate of 25 per cent in 2005-06 to settle at Rs 52,998 crore, according to the Indian Telecom Industry Report released by Voice & Data. Last fiscal, it had registered an explosive growth of over 70 per cent.

The enterprise equipment market grew 31 per cent to reach Rs 7,901 crore in 2005-06; the market for carrier equipment stood at Rs 29,040 with a growth of 13 per cent and the market for telephones (mobile and fixed) grew at 50 per cent to reach Rs 16,057 crore.

Nokia continued to remain the undisputed top telecom equipment vendor in India with revenues of Rs 12,062 crore and LG Electronics jumped from the sixth place in 20004-05, to become the number two telecom vendor in India.

The growth in the phones' market was fuelled by mobile phones which grew at 62 per cent. Of the Rs 10,552 crore that the equipment industry grew over the previous fiscal, Rs 5,453 crore was contributed by sale of mobile phones.

In volume terms, around 38 million mobile handsets were added in 2005-06. GSM had a 73 per cent share of the mobile phone pie. The GSM market grew at 42 per cent clocking revenues of Rs 10,506 crore.

The market for CDMA handsets grew at 164 per cent to reach Rs 3,752 crore. The fixed phones market slipped by 6 per cent to settle at Rs 1,799 crore.

However, riding the broadband boom, the plain old telephone systems (POTS) registered a growth of 26 per cent although the Fixed Wireless Phones dipped 11 per cent.

Though the focus of carriers continued to be wireless, triggered by service providers' focus on network expansion, the market for telecom cables increased 59 per cent to reach Rs 1,566 crore.

Revenues from transmission equipment plummeted 12 per cent to Rs 645 crore despite the private players placing large orders. Telecom turnkey market grew 27 per cent to reach Rs 2,837 crore, and the buzzword for this industry from now on is going to be infrastructure sharing.

The Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) market grew to reach Rs 355 crore "� new technologies and lowering of equipment costs helped it to a growth rate of 22 per cent.

The broadband equipment market too grew at 29 per cent to reach Rs 642 crore "� however, this investment will take time to materialise in terms of subscriber numbers, states the survey.

Meanwhile, enterprises are doing business as usual. The enterprise equipment market grew 31 per cent to Rs 7,901 crore in 2005-06. Switches remained the biggest segment of that pie, growing at 22 per cent to Rs 1,587 crore despite a crashing of prices.

The router market grew 23 per cent to reach Rs 1,047 crore thanks to increased demand. Voice solutions market grew 32 per cent to clock Rs 1,102 crore, banking on broad basing its customer profile and seeing growth across all verticals.

Structured cabling too grew, riding the buoyant business scenario in the country to grow at 38 per cent and rake in Rs 574 crore.

The network security market demonstrated maturity by growing at 50 per cent to clock 105 crore from network security services and Rs 429 crore from network security products, i.e., Rs 539 crore in all.

The network storage market grew 30 per cent to bring in Rs 559 crore, and was helped by mid-sized companies adding revenues to it.

With a reduction in the price of equipment and increase in adoption, the audio-videoconferencing market grew 72 per cent to clock revenues of 74 crore.

The increase in demand for data services drove modems to a growth of 30 per cent, and revenues of Rs 270 crore. The business of network integration grew at 21 per cent to bring in Rs 905 crore.

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Pushing ahead

Growth of telecom infrastructure equipment remained at 13%

Enterprise equipment grew 31%

Mobile handsets (GSM+ CDMA) sales up 62%

Telecom software contributes more than wireless infrastructure

Wireless infrastructure grew by 1% only

Nokia remains leader with over 50% of handset market

L G Electronics comes second with about 18%