2016 Year end review of Telecom Sector

By Abhay Kumar

Posted on December 21, 2016

One sector for which this year would be remembered is “Telecommunications”. The government’s initiatives of “Digital india” and “Cashless India” have been made possible with the advancements in telecom sector. Read News on Reliance Jio.

Let’s look into key development, in telecom sector in 2016

• Launch of Reliance Jio – In Sep 206, reliance jio launched world cheapest 4G service, within 83 days it has acquired 50million customers which is a  new record in world telecom market. Such a fast customer acquisition is mainly due to unlimited free usage till March’31. We will get the real customer base number only in 1^st Quarter result of 2017-18.
• BSNL turnaround– After reeling under heavy losses for many years, BSNL turns profitable in 2016. According to MoT, Mr Ravi Shankar, BSNL could earn an operating profit of Rs 2k crore in current financial year.
• Entrance of MVNO – MVNO(Mobile Virtual Network Operator) which is quite successful in developed countries. In March, Telecom commission gave a final approval for MVNO’s. Nearly 80 companies have applied for the license . In coming years, we can see new and innovative data services by MVNO players.
• Merger of Reliance and Aircel – In Sep 2016, Reliance Comm wireless division signed an agreement to merge with Aircel wireless business – a sign of consolidation in the Indian telecom industry. The combined entity will be ranked amongst top five operators by customer base and revenue.
• Broadband connectivity in Rural India– The ambitious PPP project “Bharat Net” to connect all rural areas, has started showing positive results. According to DIPP(Department of Industrial Policy & Promotions (DIPP)), by Nov it is able to connect  59,945 Gram Panchayats spanning a distance of 137,515 kms .

Many new innovations is happening even in the B2B space,  which is occupied  by relatively small and startup companies, Let’s check the key developments.

• Twilio IPO – Though it is not an Indian company, but overwhelming response to Twilio IPO has brought-in a positive momentum in India based Cloud Telecommunication players. At the current price, Twilio is valued more than $ 1 billion
• Knowlarity Fund raising – The Indian Cloud Telecommunication company Knowlarity is able to raise $20 million from Delta Partners.
• Ozonetel social media integration – Ozonetel is able to integrate successfully with Facebook chat bot and twitter. The Facebook bot in used by reality TV show Big Boss.

Let’s look at some published number, based on TRAI latest press release.

	Total Telephone Subscribers(Millions)	Overall Tele-density	Broadband Subscribers (Million)	Urban Tele-density*	Rural Tele-density*
Sep’16	1049.74	82.17	174.47	151.1	50.8
Sep’15	996.66	78.93	104.75	147.35	48.11

The above figure clearly indicates,  broadband connectivity has grown significantly in 2016. But still we have to do a lot of initiatives to increase Rural teledensity and broadband connectivity.

Though many development has taken this year.  In India, the year will be remembered for transition from traditional voice call to video chat or in technical term a move from PSTN based 2G network to  IP based 4G calls.

2016 Year end review of Telecom Sector