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ndia is the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world. The booming telecom industry has been attracting

large amount of investments in the country. The number of telephone subscriber base in the country reached 671.69 million as on June 30, 2010 from 653.92 million in May 2010, as per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). According to the latest survey conducted by Voice and Data, CyberMedia group journal, Bharti Airtel emerges as India's top mobile phone operator in 2009-10. Let's take a look at India's top 10 telecom service providers in India in terms of revenue. 1. Bharti Airtel Bharti Airtel retained its leading position among telecom service providers and posted a growth of five per cent to end 2009-10 fiscal with revenues of Rs 38,800 crore (Rs 388 billion). The company is structured into four strategic business units -- mobile, telemedia, enterprise and digital TV. The company has with operations in 18 countries with a footprint covering 1.8 billion people. Sunil Bharti Mittal is the chairman and managing director of the company. In March 2010, Bharti Airtel bought the African operations of Kuwait-based Zain Telecom for $10.7 billion. Recently, it has joined a consortium of global telecom operators to announce the launch of the EASSy cable system - the 10,000 km undersea cable connecting Africa to Europe.

2. BSNL

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited saw a drop in its revenue for the second consecutive year to post Rs 30,240 crore
(Rs 302.4 billion), a drop of 14 per cent, even though it retained the number two position among telecom players. BSNL offers both fixed line and mobile services with broadband connections. With over 71.68 million subscribers, BSNL currently is the largest wireline service provider in India. The company has reported around 6 crore (600 million) 2G connections and 9,73,378 3G connections since February 2010. All major towns and cities are covered through BSNL network. Gopal Das is the new chairman and managing director of BSNL.

3. Vodafone Essar

The Indian subsidiary of Vodafone Group, Vodafone Essar recorded 13.7 per cent growth to emerge as the third
largest player with revenue of Rs 23,200 crore (Rs 232 billion). The company commenced operations in 1994 when its predecessor Hutchison Telecom acquired the cellular license for Mumbai. It has operations across the country with over 106.34 million customers. It is the world's leading international mobile communications group with approximately 347 million proportionate customers as on 30 June 2010 and has around 40 partner networks worldwide. Vittorio Colao is Vodafone chief executive, and Marten Pieters is managing director and CEO, Vodafone Essar.

4. Reliance Communications

Reliance ADA Group's flagship company, Reliance Communications reported a negative growth of 3.5 per cent with
revenue of Rs 22,130 crore (Rs 221.3 billion). It is India's largest private sector information and communications company, with over 100 million subscribers. It has established a pan-India, high-capacity, integrated (wireless and wireline), convergent (voice, data and video) digital network, to offer services spanning the entire infocomm value chain. Anil D Ambani is the chairman of the company.

5. Idea Cellular

Idea Cellular is part of the Aditya Birla Group and has bagged fifth position with a revenue of Rs 11,390 crore (Rs
113.9 billion). It is a leading GSM mobile services operator in India with 67 million subscribers. Idea offers both prepaid and post paid services. It is a pan-India operator with services being made available in all parts of the country. Idea was the first cellular service provider to launch General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) in the country. Kumar Mangalam Birla is the chairman of the group.

6. Tata Communications

Tata Communications reported revenue of Rs 11,000 crore (Rs 110 billion).

The company holds leadership position in emerging markets. Tata Communications leverages its advanced solutions capabilities and domain expertise across its global and panIndia network to deliver managed solutions to multi-national enterprises, service providers and Indian consumers. The Tata Global Network includes one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks, a Tier-1 IP network, with connectivity to more than 200 countries across 400 PoPs, and nearly 1 million square feet of data center and collocation space worldwide. Srinath Narasimhan is the managing director and CEO of Tata Communications.

7. Tata Teleservices

Tata Teleservices spearheads the Tata Group's presence in the telecom sector. It has posted revenue of Rs 6,900
crore (Rs 69 billion). Established in 1996, Tata Teleservices, one of the 96 companies of Tata Group, has its network in 20 circles. It is the first company to launch CDMA mobile services in India. It launched mobile operations in January 2005 under the brand name Tata Indicom. It enjoys a pan-India presence through existing operations in all of India's 22 telecom circles. Tata Teleservices operates under five different brands -- Tata Indicom (CDMA services), Tata DOCOMO (GSM services), Virgin Mobile, Tata Walky (which is the brand for fixed wireless phones), Tata Photon (the company's brand that provides a variety of options for wireless mobile broadband access) and T24. Tata Teleservices Ltd, along with Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd, serves nearly 70 million customers in more than 450,000 towns and villages across the country. Anil Sardana is the managing director of Tata Teleservices.

8. Aircel

Aircel recorded the highest growth of 37.2 per cent among operators in 2009-10.
The company posted a revenue of Rs 4,700 crore (Rs 47 billion) to move to the number eight slot. It is a joint venture between Maxis Communications Berhad of Malaysia and Sindya Securities Investments Private Limited, whose current shareholders are the Reddy family of Apollo Hospitals Group of India.

Aircel commenced operations in 1999 and became the leading mobile operator in Tamil Nadu. It emerged a market leader in Assam and in the North Eastern provinces within 18 months of operations. Today, the company has a foothold in 21 circles including Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Assam, North East, Orissa, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Kolkata, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, UP(West), UP(East), Maharashtra & Goa , Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab. It has over 43 million customers in the country.

MTNL

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL)'s revenue dropped nearly by a fifth highest among the top 10 players
-- to Rs 3,650 crore (Rs 36.5 billion). The company has achieved a customer base of 8.06 million in the two metro cities of Delhi and Mumbai. The government currently holds 56.25 per cent stake in the company. Today it has more than 9,00,000 GSM mobile connections. The company was in the forefront of technology induction by converting 100 per cent of its telephone exchange network into the state-of-the-art digital mode. Kuldip Singh is chairman & managing director of MTNL.

Ipsos recently released a survey that listed Indias top marketing companies in 2012. Indian telecom companies like Idea Cellular, Tata Docomo, Vodafone and Airtel were in the top 25. The survey noted that 3 of these telecom brands roped in celebrities for their advertising and marketing while Vodafone was the only one that innovated their campaigns with animated Zoozoos. The telecom market in India is currently extremely dynamic. On one hand, telecom brands are vying for the market share in a country with a recorded mobile user base of about 91 crore. And on the other hand, they and dealing with challenging problems like broadband connectivity, changing TRAI regulations and so on. Here is a snapshot of how these telecom brands have fared in the marketing strategies in the recent times.

Vodafone

The IPSOS Survey ranks Vodafone as the best marketing company in India. Ever since Hutch saw success with the You and I campaign in 2006, Vodafone has never looked back. They have launched several successful advertising campaigns after that. In 2012, Vodafone continued to ride on the success of its Super Zoozoo series that was used to launch their 3G services in 2011. Vodafone also launched the Blue Facebook phone in 2012 to fulfill the Indian youths social networking needs. In 2012, Vodafone has re-launched its famous brand mascot the pug in campaign to aggressively promote Mobile Number Portability. Amongst all the telecom companies, Vodafone has a revenue share of 21 percent in the telecom market.

Bharti Airtel

The IPSOS Survey ranks Airtel as the second best marketing company in India. This year, Airtel was also one of the three Indian brands that entered the coveted Mildred and Brown report of the Top 100 Global Brands. Airtel has been traditionally leveraging celebrity power to reach their users with stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Vidya Balan, R Madhavan, A R Rahman, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. But in 2011-12 they took a different route with the Har Friend Zaroori Hai Yaar campaign.

Airtel has also been in the news for its sponsoring the F1 race recently and its tie up with Axis Bankfor offering mobile banking services through Airtel Money. According to latest TRAI figures, the revenue share of Airtel in the Indian telecom market is 28 percent.

Idea Cellular

Idea signed Abhishek Bachchan as its brand ambassador in 2007 and has been successfully continuing its campaign till date without employing other celebrities for its marketing. The advertising campaign of Idea Cellular started out by promoting inclusiveness and offering network coverage to the remotest part of India. In 2011, Ideas main focus remained on promoting its 3G services. In 2012, Idea ads are promoting various Idea apps. The long lasting What an Idea Sirjee campaign has also attempted to weave in a social message in some of its ads be it saving paper or having a casteless society. Idea ranks at the 12 place amongst best marketing companies in India in the IPSOS survey. According to TRAI figures, the revenue share of Idea Cellular in the Indian telecom market is 12 percent.
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Tata Teleservices

From the very beginning, Tata Docomo has maintained its message of a network that connects everywhere through its advertising campaigns that show how the user is forced to pick up their calls in the oddest of situations by cashing in on their signature Docomo tune. Docomo has also leveraged social

media extremely well. It is one of the few Indian brands that created its official ID on numerous blogs and forums from MySpace to Rediffmypages to Bharatstudent. Docomo went ahead and used YouTube as a medium to interact with their users by allowing them to upload animation videos created by them. In 2011 the brand signed Ranbir Kapoor as the brand ambassador for their Keep it Simple campaign in which the aim was to simplify their differentiated products and services. Docomo ranked at the 16 spot in the IPSOS survey. Tata Teleservices have a revenue share of 8 percent in the Indian telecom market, as per TRAI figures. It is important for these brands to rethink whether they are only producing creative and innovative advertising or are users really being able to differentiate between their products and services. Just like many players in the automobile industry are now catering many of their marketing campaigns to rural India, the next move for telecom brands too could be in the same direction.
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Marketing strategy for Telecom Industry in India

Labels: Marketing, Telecom India Mobile

If this isn't obvious, then let me spell it out for you: This post was an entry for a competition, and after pushing the deadlines for few hours, they said they've had enough (They got the right amount of entries), so ours was rejected. Now having put quite some effort into it, this article lands here as a post. Discussed in this post are market trends and potential Differentiation practices. The details are kept to bare minimum, to take care of the length of the post.

MARKET TRENDS:

Telecoms can increase network spread with positive ROI to only certain extent, so consolidation and further land grab for urban market will continue. Real penetration is still low, so urban population will remain to be viable target over next 3-4 years. High speed internet on mobile/netbooks/laptops, VAS, IVR, 3G, 3.5G are going to be the watchwords. The prudent and pragmatic Indian populace and earlier and not very positive interaction customers have had with earlier telecoms and new tech, they are bound to be bit circumspect. A level of trust, basic telecom relations and establishment has to prerequisite for further interaction. Premium customers may be provided special offers to avail of 3G services, relieving congestion as well as providing newer services to premium subscribers. Network sharing, partnering, outsourcing, better revenue sharing models than prevailing with VAS content creators, aggregating bodies will be key to positive ROIs. First move: LAND GRAB TO VALUE BASED SERVICES. TARGET the Indian customers worn down by celebs and big names who have become cash cows and are adding little than just matching best competition practices. Of this segment, the youth is the most viable segment for positive communication. What has to change for differentiation? Customer service: Personal marketing, defined by long term relationships will position the brand as one which can be trusted, is simple and is faithful to customer. CRM (Customer relations management) should be made more local in spite of pan-India-circle plan (arresting the question of reliability) and ubiquitous. With trust, doing the walk, faithfulness, getting things done, availability even in terms of physical presence being the new watch words. New tech and High speed internet: bundled with compatible mobile devices. All the new innovation has to be preceded by the above differentiation and new trades like mobile advertising, pre-call advertisements should only be adapted once they are tested by other telecoms. Loyalty incentives, Customer centric plans in true sense (Send your request, after you have been loyal) as part of long term plan.

Value communication: The advertisement campaigns revolving around realistic icons like Saina Nehwal, Bindra, Beauty contest winners etc. The key to approval would be what happens when the buck stops, how is the relationship with customer then? Does it make them feel significant, make them belong?

Event creation: Campaigns around youth, indigenous Indian activities which beg the question how the truly creative and aspiring Indians ask WHAT, WHY IT? Involving target consumers in branding and not the other way. VAS targeting rural demography which will be also used for brand building and positioning.