Some Call The Shots

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Three players in the wireless telephony market, namely Reliance, Bharti and BSNL, account for over 60% of its share, while the top five players account for over 80%. Thus, though the wireless market has twelve players, it is concentrated in the hands of a few. Bharti Cellular, BSNL, Hutch, Idea Cellular and Reliance are the leading five.

Their total market share amounts to 84.6%, thus leaving less than 20% for the other seven players. The latter group includes Aircel, BPL Mobile, HFCL Infotel, MTNL, Shyam Telelink, Spice Communications and Tata Teleservices.

As per the latest data, while Reliance had a presence in 22 circles in February ‘05, Bharti and BSNL followed with 21 and 20 circles respectively.

However, an extensive presence does not necessarily amount to a significant market share, as in the case of Tata Teleservices, which has a market share of just 2.2%, despite being present in 19 circles. On the other hand, Hutch and Idea, which have a market share of more than 10% each, have a presence in just ten and eight circles respectively.

In addition to an extensive presence, Reliance also had a subscriber base of 10.95m in February ‘05. It was followed by Bharti with a subscriber base of 10.66m. The other wireless players have subscriber bases below 10m.

With regard to market shares, Reliance has the highest, at 22.1%. Bharti is close with 21.5%, and BSNL comes in third with a share of 17.8%. Hutch and Idea Cellular have market shares of 12.9% and 10.2% respectively.

Among the smaller players, Aircel has a market share of 6.1%, followed by Spice Communications and BPL Mobile, with 3% and 2.4% respectively. Barring Tata Teleservices and MTNL, the rest of the players have market shares below 1%.

Compared to the market shares for December ‘03, those of BPL Mobile, Reliance and Spice Communications have fallen, whereas those of Hutch, Idea, MTNL and Aircel have increased. As per December ‘03 data, Idea had a market share of just 8.5%, whereas the figure for Hutch was 11.2%.

The top five players being the same as current, constituted a total market share of more than 80%.

At present, Aircel Digilink and BPL Cellular are present in four circles each, whereas MTNL and Spice Communications are present in two each. On the

other hand, HFCL Infotel and Shyam Telelink are present in one circle each.