Telecom equipment sales in India grow 18.6% in 2009-10

The Indian telecom equipment segment maintained its growth momentum clocking a growth of 18.6 per cent in the financial year 2009-10 marginally lower than the  the 20 per cent growth in the previous year, according to Voice&Data100 survey.

The overall telecom equipment revenue stood at Rs 136,833 crore ($28.8 billion) during the fiscal, as against Rs 115,382 crore in 2008-09, This segment is largely dominated by telecom equipment providers targeting telecom operators as well as mobile handset makers like Nokia that derives bulk of its sales from this segment.

The Voice&Data100 annual survey by CyberMedia, on telecom equipment is based on the revenue of telecom vendors in the enterprise equipment, carrier equipment and phone segments.

“The telecom equipment segment growth is impressive in the backdrop of the recession-hit economy at large, and the fact that the 3G rollout did not happen last year,” said Ibrahim Ahmad, group editor, Voice&Data.

The telecom segment will continue to see robust growth in the current fiscal in the wake of upcoming 3G and Broadband Wirelss Access (BWA) launches and 2G expansion by new operators.

Finnish mobile maker Nokia maintained its top ranking with revenues of Rs 14,100 crore despite a decline in revenues as compared to last year, followed by the Chinese equipment maker Huawei.

Huawei clocked revenues of Rs 11,000 crore, despite India's security concerns about China-sourced telecom equipment. Nokia Siemens Networks maintained its third position at Rs 10,824 crore, growing nearly 10 per cent. Ericsson, which had been in a comfortable second position for the last two years, fell to the fourth place.

ITI and Tech Mahindra were the new entrants in the V&D Top10 list of telecom equipment vendors in FY 2009-10. ITI entered the top 10 ranking with its spectacular 172 per cent growth, touching Rs 4,732 crore.

The carrier equipment industry showed a steady 21 per centgrowth, clocking Rs 89,476 crore (nearly $19 billion), driven by high growth of wireless infrastructure, WiMax, transmission and broadband infrastructure. Even though growth slowed compared to 2008-09, due to lower operator investments in the wireless infrastructure (primarily cellular service providers' equipments for rolling out services), it was still very healthy. Service providers slowed down their 2G expansion plans, in the absence of clarity on the 3G auctions, which finally happened in the current fiscal,.

Even before the auction of BWA spectrum was initiated for private players, the country saw investments in WiMax by players like BSNL and Tata Communications.

Despite the cautious approach by 2G operators, wireless infrastructure grew 26 per cent to touch Rs 43,200 crore.

The Enterprise equipment segment grew by 31 per cent to touch Rs 20,007 crore. The Switch and Router segments showed 92 per cent and 65 per cent growth, respectively.