Detailed description of Telecom brands Airtel-Idea-Vodafone-Jio-BSNL

1. MAJOR PLAYERS IN
INDIAN TELECOM
INDUSTRY

2. INTRODUCTION
•India is the world's second-largest telecommunications
market, with over 1.21 billion subscribers as of July
2017.
•The wireless segment (98.02 per cent of total telephone
subscriptions) dominates the market.
•It has also been growing at a brisk pace. During FY07-
17, wireless subscriptions witnessed a CAGR of 21.64
per cent to reach1,170.2million.
•India is also the second largest country in terms of
internet subscribers.
•The country is now the world’s second largest
smartphone market and will have almost one billion
unique mobile subscribers by 2020.

3. •Revenues from the telecom equipment sector are
expected to grow to US$ 26.38 billion by 2020.
•India’s telecommunications market is expected to
experience further growth, fueled by increased non-
voice revenues and higher penetration in rural market.
•Telecom penetration in the nation's rural market
increased to 57.45 per cent by July 2017. The emergence
of an affluent middle class is triggering demand for the
mobile and internet segments.
•Strong policy support from the government has been
crucial to the sector’s development. Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) cap in the telecom sector has been
increased to 100 per cent from 74 per cent.

4. THE TELECOM MARKET SPLIT INTO
THREE SEGMENTS

9. COMPANY OVERVIEW
•Idea Cellular was Founded in 1995 as Birla Communications
Limited with GSM licenses in Gujarat and Maharashtra circles.
•In 2002 it changed its name to IDEA
•It is an Aditya Birla Group Company, India's first truly
multinational corporation.
•It is an Indian Mobile Network Operator based in Mumbai,
Maharashtra.
•Idea is a pan-India integrated GSM operator offering 2G, 3G and
4G mobile services.
•It has 193.96 million subscribers as of 31 July 2017.

10. •Idea is one of the top three mobile operators in India and it ranks
sixth in the global rankings of operators in subscriber terms, for
single country operations.
•Key People
 Chairman: Kumar Mangalam Birla
 CEO: Himanshu Kapania
•The revenue as of 2017 is 355.8 Bn INR.
•Its network covers over 400,000 towns and villages across the
country. And it comprises of over 240,000 cell sites, nearly half of
which is broadband.
• Net gain of over 22 million customers through MNP(Mobile
Number Portability).

12. REVENUE GROWTH RATE
2015: INR315.71 Bn 2016: INR359.81 Bn
2017:INR355.76 Bn

13. MARKETING STRATEGY
•The launch of 4G LTE services and the launch of MNP(Mobile
Number Portability)has strengthened the customer base.
•Selective Distribution Network Strategy is adopted by IDEA in
order to distribute its product to customers easily.
•Idea offers special packages for female customers.
•In order to create brand awareness among the customers Idea
has tie-up with major IPL team Mumbai Indians.
•In order to keep in pace with the growing digital environment
idea had launched digital entertainment apps such as:
 Idea Music Lounge, Idea Movie Club and Idea Game Spark.
 digital communication, digital payments, cloud and storage
etc.

14. •Before 2007 Idea focused on highlighting its tariff plans and
network coverage.
•After 2007 it focused on solving the social issues of the
customers and hiring Abhishek Bachan as its brand ambassador.
•The various ad campaigns are:
‘Walk When You Talk’, ‘Eliminate Language Barriers’, ‘Education
For All’, ‘No Ullu Banaoing’
•It also developed various website to support its ads that were
based on the social issues

16. INTRODUCTION
•Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, or Jio, is an LTE mobile
network operator in India. It is a wholly owned subsidiary
of Reliance Industries headquartered in Navi Mumbai,
Maharashtra that provides wireless 4G LTE service
network (without 2G/3G based services) and is the only
'VoLTE-only' (Voice over LTE) operator in the country
which lacks legacy network support of 2G and 3G, with
coverage across all 22 telecom circles in India.[
•The services were first beta-launched to Jio's partners
and employees on 27 December 2015 on the eve of 83rd
birth anniversary of late Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of
Reliance Industries, and later services were commercially
launched on 5th September 2016.

17. •In June 2010, Reliance Industries (RIL) bought a 96%
stake in Infotel Broadband Services Limited (IBSL) for
₹4,800 crore (US$750 million). Although unlisted, IBSL
was the only company that won broadband spectrum in
all 22 circles in India in the 4G auction that took place
earlier that year.[
•Later continuing as RIL's telecom subsidiary, Infotel
Broadband Services Limited was renamed as Reliance Jio
Infocomm Limited (RJIL) in January 2013.
•In June 2015, Jio announced that it will start its
operations all over the country by the end of
2015.[However, four months later in October 2015, the
company's spokesmen sent out a press release stating
that the launch was postponed to the first quarter of the
financial year 2016-2017.

18. •Later in July, a PIL filed in the Supreme Court by an NGO
called the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, through
Prashant Bhushan, challenged the grant of pan-India
licence to Jio by the Government of India.
•The PIL also alleged that Jio was allowed to provide voice
telephony along with its 4G data service, by paying an
additional fees of just ₹165.8 crore (US$26 million) which
was arbitrary and unreasonable, and contributed to a
loss of ₹2,284.2 crore (US$360 million) to the exchequer.
•The Indian Department of Telecom (DoT), however,
refuted all of CAG's claims. In its statement, DoT
explained that the rules for 3G and BWA spectrum didn't
restrict BWA winners from providing voice telephony. As
a result, the PIL was revoked, and the accusations were
dismissed.

19. •The 4G services were launched internally to Jio's
partners, its staff and their families on 27 December
2015.
•Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, who is also the brand
ambassador of Jio, kickstarted the launch event which
took place in Reliance Corporate Park in Navi Mumbai,
along with celebrities like musician A R Rahman, actors
Ranbir Kapoor and Javed Jaffrey, and filmmaker Rajkumar
Hirani.
•The closed event was witnessed by more than 35000 RIL
employees some of whom were virtually connected from
around 1000 locations including Dallas in the US.[

20. •The company commercially launched its services on 5
September 2016.
• Within the first month of commercial operations, Jio
announced that it had acquired 16 million subscribers.
•This is the fastest ramp-up by any mobile network
operator anywhere in the world. Jio crossed 50 million
subscriber mark in 83 days since its launch.
•Subsequently crossing 100 million subscribers on 22
February 2017.
• By October 2017 it had about 130 million
subscribers.[20]

21. ALLIANCE
•BT Group
•Deutsche Telekom
•Millicom
•Orange S.A.
•Rogers Communications
•MTS
•Telia Company
•Telecom Italia

22. NETWORK ACQUISITION
•Jio owns spectrum in
 850 MHz in bands 10 circles
 1,800 MHz bands in 06 circles
•Owns pan-India licensed 2,300 MHz spectrum (Valid till
2035)
•The company has a network of more than 250,000 km of
fiber optic cables in the country

23. PARTNERSHIPS
•Jio shares spectrum with Reliance Communications for
800 MHz band across seven circles other than the 10
circles for which Jio already owns
•In February 2017, Jio announced a partnership
with Samsung to work on LTE - Advanced Pro and 5G

24. MARKET SHARE
278.6
211196.2
117.3103.2
274.4
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Sales
Airtel
Vodafne
Idea Cellular
Reliance Jio
BSNL
others
Total No Of Customers:
 118.07 crore (1.1807 B)
Reliance Jio:
 10% market share
 11.73 crore (117.3 M) Subscribers

25. PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
JIO PHONE
 affordable 4G feature phone (KaiOS)
 Price ₹ 0 with a security deposit of ₹ 1500
4G BROADBAND
LYF SMARTPHONE
 4G handsets capable of voice over LTE (VoLTE)
JIONET WIFI
 free WiFi hotspot services in cities throughout India
 Surat, Ahmedabad,
 Visakhapatnam,
 Indore, Jabalpur, Dewas and Ujjain
 select locations of Mumbai
 Kolkata
 Lucknow
 Bhubaneswar

26. • JIO APPS
• My Jio
• Jio TV
• Jio Cinema
• Jio Chat Messenger
• Jio Music
• Jio 4GVoice - A VoLTE phone simulator
• Jio Mags
• Jio XpressNews
• Jio Security
• Jio Drive
• Jio Money Wallet
• JIOFI
• Wi-Fi routers

28. INTRODUCTION
•Vodafone India is a 100% subsidiary of Vodafone Group.
•It commenced operations in 1994 when its predecessor
Hutchison Telecom acquired the cellular license for
Mumbai.
•Brand Vodafone was launched in India in September
2007, after Vodafone Plc. acquired a majority stake in
Hutchinson Essar in May 2007.
•From a single operation base with 31 million customers,
the company has expanded its operations across the
country to cover all 22 telecom circles and service 210
million customers.
•This journey is a strong testimony of Vodafone's
commitment and success in a highly competitive and
price sensitive market.

29. • As of August 2016, Vodafone India has a market share
of 18.42% with approximately 200 million subscribers
and is the second largest mobile telecommunications
network nationally after Airtel.
•In 2011, Vodafone introduced the 3G network on
900 MHz and 1.8 GHz digital GSM technology.
•M-Pesa, was launched in India as a close partnership with
HDFC bank in November 2011.
•On 28 June 2012, Vodafone launched a new international
roaming package under which the users shall have not to
pay multiple rentals in the countries they are visiting.

30. •On 19 May 2015, TRAI announced that Vodafone had
been awarded spectrum in 9 circles for 3G coverage,
bidding around ₹ 11617.86 million (the second highest
amount in the auctions) for the spectrum.
•On 8 December 2015, Vodafone announced the roll out
of its 4G LTE coverage in India on 1.8 GHz and 2.1 GHz
bands starting from Kochi.
•The service became available to customers in India
nationally in 2017, with plans for further expansion.
Vodafone now starts 2100Mhz and 2500 Mhz for 4G by
which customers will get superior 4G speed than
previous.
•Vodafone is expected to launch VoLTE services by the
end of 2017.
•There have been a merger with IDEA to become no.1.

34. INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY
•SUNIL MITTAL the founder of AIRTEL , started the
company in 1992 after bidding succesfully for one of
the four mobile phone network licences auctioned
in India. It started operating in DELHI in 1995 after
getting government approval.
•Airtel India is the second largest provider of mobile
telephony and second largest provider of fixed telephony
in India, and is also a provider of broadband and
subscription television services.
•The brand is operated by several subsidiaries of Bharti
Airtel, with Bharti Hexacom and Bharti Telemedia
providing broadband fixed line services and Bharti
Infratel providing telecom passive infrastructure service
such as telecom equipment and telecom towers

35. •In 1999, Bharti Enterprises acquired JT Holdings to
extend operations in karanataka and andhra pradesh .
Similarly operations were extended to other states
through some more mergers and acquistion.
•In 2008 airtel entered foreign markets and launched its
first international mobile network in Sri Lanka . In
2010,airtel acquired the African business of Zain
Telecom for $10.7 billion making it the largest ever
acquisition by an Indian tele communication company.
•Today airtel provides its service across 19 countries of
world. With 303.08 million subscribers worldwide—
264.58 million in India and South Asia , airtel has
become the largest network operator in India and
the third largest in the world.
•In 2016 , according to TRAI India has 431.22million
mobile subscriber in Rural india out of which 130.57
million were airtel users .

36. •Airtel big rivals in industry are VODAFONE , IDEA and
Reliance JIO
•As of JULY 2017 market shares of companies are - IDEA
16.50% , VODAFONE 17.90% , JIO 10.83% and AIRTEL
leading with 23.70% .
•Airtel provides GSM 3G and 4G mobile services, fixed line
broadband and voice services depending upon the country
of operation. In March 2017, airtel acquired Tikona Digital
Network Pvt Ltd in order to purchase 4G spectrum of 20
Mhz in 2300 band for a whopping price of 1600cr.
•Airtel is the first Indian telecom service provider to achieve
Cisco Gold Certification. It also acts as a carrier for national
and international long distance communication services.
The company has a submarine cable landing station at
Chennai, with a connection to Singapore. As of September
2016, Airtel has 255.73 million subscribers with a market
share of 24.7% in the Indian telephony market. Airtel was
named India's second most valuable brand in the first ever
Brandz ranking by Millward Brown and WPP plc.

37. •On 3 November 2016, The Economic Times reported that
Airtel had awarded a ₹402 crore (US$60 million) contract
to Nokia to implement Voice over Long-Term Evolution
(VoLTE) technology on the operator's network
nationwide.
•Airtel had previously awarded a smaller contract to Nokia
for trial of VoLTE technology in select circles in early
2016.
•Airtel subscribers will be able to place VoLTE calls in
areas covered by LTE.
•If LTE is not available in the area, the call will fall back to
3G or 2G.
•Airtel is expected to launch VoLTE services in early 2017.

41. INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY
•Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (abbreviated BSNL) is an
Indian state-owned telecommunications company
headquartered in New Delhi. It was incorporated on
15 September 2000 and assumed the business of
providing telecom services and network management
from the erstwhile Central Government Departments of
Telecom Services (DTS) and Telecom Operations (DTO) as
of 1 October 2000 on a going-concern basis.
•It is the largest provider of fixed telephony and
broadband services with more than 60% market share,
and is the fifth largest mobile telephony provider in
India.

42. •However, in recent years, the company's revenues and
market share have plummeted resulting in heavy losses
as a result of intense competition in the privatizing
Indian telecommunications sector.
•BSNL is India's oldest communication service provider
and had a customer base of 93.29 million as of June
2015.
•It has footprints throughout India, except for Mumbai
and New Delhi, where telecommunicatons are managed
by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL).

43. •BSNL Mobile is a major provider of GSM cellular mobile
services under the brand name Cellone. BSNL provides a
complete telecom services solution to enterprise
customers including MPLS, P2P and Internet leased lines.
• It provides fixedline services and landline using CDMA
technology and its own extensive optical fiber network.
BSNL provides Internet access services through dial-up
connections as prepaid, NetOne as Postpaid and Data
One as BSNL Broadband.
•BSNL offers value-added services such as Free Phone
Service (FPH), India Telephone Card (Prepaid card),
Account Card Calling (ACC), Virtual Private Network
(VPN), Tele-voting, Premium Rate Service (PRM) and
Universal Access Number (UAN).

44. •BSNL also offers the IPTV which enables customers to
watch television through the Internet and Voice and
Video Over Internet Protocol (VVoIP).[ In 2007, BSNL
announced plans to provide 5 million broadband
connections and secured 80% of the INR 25 billion rural
telephony project of the Government of India.
•On 20 March 2009, BSNL launched blackberry services
across India. BSNL paid Rs. 101.87 billion for 3G
spectrum in 2010. As of 2011[u, BSNL offered coverage in
over 800 cities across India.
•BSNL launched in 2012 a 3G wireless pocket-sized router
called Winknet Mf50. BSNL 3G provides HSPA+ service
with a top speed of 21.1 Mbit/s downlink and 5.76
Mbit/s uplink.

45. •After providing it for 160 years, BSNL discontinued its
telegraph service on 15 July 2013. It began delivering
telegrams to the public in February 1855; this service
was upgraded to a web-based messaging system in
2010 and had been offered through 182 telegraph
offices across India.
•Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, a Public Sector Enterprise,
also provides fiber plans for the home, which are
generally known as BSNL FTTH broadband service. This is
the fastest broadband service provided by BSNL, offering
speeds up to 100Mbit/s to home-based Internet users.
•According to a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
Report dated 19 Feb 2016, at the end of 2015, BSNL's
14.54% share of the broadband market placed it 4th in
market share. As a wireless provider, it ranked 6th with
an 8.16% share of that market.[16]

46. •BSNL launched linguistic email service using the
DATAMAIL app in eight Indian languages. The DATAMAIL
app is powered with XgenPlus email technology provided
by Data Xgen Technologies.
•On 8 June 2017 BSNL signed a memorandum of
understanding (MoU) with the Universal Service
Obligation Fund (USOF) to have 25,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in
rural exchanges within the next six months.
•BSNL is divided into a number of administrative units,
variously known as: telecom circles, metro districts,
project circles and specialised units. It has 24 telecom
circles, two metro districts, six project circles, four
maintenance regions, five telecom factories, three
training institutions and four specialised telecom units.

47. MARKET SHARE