Capture 30 Pc Marketshare By End Of Next Year: Raja To Bsnl

[KumaarShah 143]

NEW DELHI: Expressing concern on the drop in BSNL's marketshare, Communications and IT Minister A Raja today asked the state-run telecom operator to capture 30 per cent of the market by the end of next year.

"While mobile market in India is growing at a rapid speed with more than 9 million new connections every month, BSNL has dropped from the second position to the fourth position in the country in this important sector.

"It has vast infrastructure throughout the country with maximum reach and penetration. I would like the organisation to leverage this strength to increase its market share to 30 per cent by the end of next year," Raja said today at the BSNL circle head meeting here.

BSNL, after facing repeated delays in equipment supply due to controversies in tenders and losing critical time in customer acquisition, has a marketshare of 18.44 per cent as on April, 2008.

He said India has become the second largest customer base after China with more than 300 million telephone connections and has the fastest growth rate in mobile segment, growing at the rate of around 8-10 million connections per month.

"The whole world is looking at India as the major telecom market and a place of great opportunities in the next 5 to 10 years. Today, India is attracting an investment of approximately USD 10 billion per year, which is likely to grow to USD 15 billion per year in the next three to four years," he said.

Raja said the government is committed to cover the unconnected population through USO fund. "Under Phase-I of the project, about 8,000 towers are planned to be erected, out of which 6,175 towers will be erected by BSNL." var RN = new String (Math.random()); var RNS = RN.substring (2,11); b2 = ' '; if (doweshowbellyad==1) bellyad.innerHTML = b2;

[situ1962 21]

But if bsnl authorities don't change their attitude it is a far fetched target.always they delay commissioning of their mobile towers and more often than not it seems that their officers do it inventingally to facilitate private cellular companies.otherwise there no reason why it should not be the no 1 provider.so unless this attitude is changed it will slip further down.