Everyone says India is the hottest telecom market in the world. I think it should be termed only as the hottest GSM mobile market in the world. Check these facts out- Fixed line telephone subscriber numbers have been dwindling over the last few years with only 35 million left. Broadband growth is slow with just 3 million users, dial up Internet subscriber numbers are falling, paging has been wiped out totally, VSAT is stagnating and there are no takers for CDMA mobile as most operators are migrating to GSM. There has also been no big ticket investment in the manufacturing side this year.
At the rate at which people are surrendering their fixed line phones, I wouldn't be surprised that there would be none left in another 5-10 years. Of course one can argue that fixed line is a loosing business globally but when one looks at the the number of fixed line phones in large markets like USA and China, India is way behind and falling. Even if you take the broadband segment the growth has been very sluggish. After 2 years since broadband was launched in the country there are only 3 million subscribers. Shanghai alone has more broadband users than that. While the Government had set a target of 9 million users by 2007-much needs to be done in terms of policy making in giving a fillip to this entire sector. Well yes we are adding 8 million new telephone subscribers every month thanks to growth in the mobile segment but is that enough to term the entire telecom sector as a growth story?
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