Is India the second-largest CDMA market?

According to the CDMA Development Group (CDG), there are now over 100 million CDMA subscribers in India, making it the world's second-largest CDMA market. CDG made this announcement at an event in Mumbai.

While announcing this achievement, Perry LaForge, CDG's executive director said, "It's a very important day to celebrate not only in India but also for the CDMA industry. Now, India is the second largest CDMA market in the world, second to the US, and I would like to thank the Department of Telecommunication, TRAI and the Government of India for their support in achieving this milestone."

In his speech, LaForge requested to extend support from government bodies to provide more spectrum to CDMA operators in India. He said wireless broadband will be of great significance to connect the people and increasing Internet penetration in the country.

According to S P Shukla, Reliance Communication's president – Wireless, "We have changed the demography of the country in terms of mobility. Today, India has come a long way in mobile connectivity with Reliance. We have achieved this milestone as an industry because of collective efforts of operators, vendors, device and handset makers and the people."

"We remain committed to further grow and serve our ever-increasing CDMA customer base through innovative applications, superior network quality and service and attractive value-propositions. And I am happy to see that CDMA technology is bridging the digital divide," Shukla added.

Globally, Reliance Communication (RCOM) is ranked second, while Tata Teleservices holds fourth place among the top five CDMA operators.

While, Anil Sardana, Tata Teleservices Limited's managing director said, "It has always been our mission to provide quality telecom services to subscribers in India and it's a matter of pride that we have played a role in this 100 million CDMA subscriber achievement."

He pointed out that CDMA technology allows a rich telecom experience especially on the data side and are confident that in coming years that experience will only get better as 3G arrives and helps to unleash full potential of applications and services.

Also, Dr. Mukund Rajan, Tata Teleservices (Maharastra) Limited's managing director, Kanwalinder Singh, Qualcomm's senior president and also president of India and South Asia, T. Narsimhan, Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited's deputy CEO attended the event.

According to CDG, the CDMA users' rapid growth in India is attributed to a wide selection of affordable devices – ranging from entry level handsets to feature rich smart phones and the introduction of CDMA2000 voice and data services into urban and rural areas, helping to reshape the communication culture of India.

Agencies

Mobile players focus on MVAS to increase ARPU

With Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) touching Rs 7,510 crore in 2008 and expected to touch Rs 9,760 crore in 2009 and Rs 16,520 by 2010, mobile players are aggressively rolling out new services to increase the average revenue per user (ARPU).

Talking to CXOtoday at the Forum Nokia Developer Conference 2009, Deepak Halan, Group Business Director of IMRB International eTech said, “In the wake of changing industry markets, telecom operators are looking at MVAS as the next wave of growth, and a large chunk of revenues is expected to flow from VAS in the near future. Our report indicated that this market is growing at 70% annually.”

While the growing subscriber base has positively impacted industry revenues, operator margins have shrunk, pulling down ARPU. “As ARPU declines and voice gets commoditized, the challenge is to retain customers, develop alternative revenue streams, and create a basis for differentiation in high-churn markets that is why telecom operators are looking at MVAS as the next wave of growth,” said Halan.

Presently the mobile market has about 12-15 major players besides a number of new licences issued to Etisalat, Unitech and Reliance (GSM) that is likely to take MVAS to all time high.

Among MVAS, the most popular service was downloaded mobile music, although voice portals were swiftly taking over, said Halan. SMS-based infotainment services are largely divided among the big players. A TRAI reports indicates that out of the 375 million users, one out of every five users have a GPRS-enabled mobile across India but not many services are available making then passive users, which is a deterrent factor.

However, the new 3G initiative give a fresh pipe for data and video tracks that could be downloaded without interruptions and also mobile TV with a lot more services like video on demand will is possible, said Halan.

Srikanth Raju, Director, Head of Product Marketing Forum Nokia said, “MVAS has seen a huge market in India and now with 3G being rolled out, will further help video downloaded and a lot more development on MVAS.”