BackRCom girds loins for a share in Rs6,000 cr roaming market
RCom girds loins for a share in Rs6,000 cr roaming market
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New Delhi: In a bid to make money in the crowded GSM market, Reliance Communications (RCom) is putting up a strategy to aggressively target the Rs6,000 crore incoming international roaming market.
The company plans to complete commercial roll-out of its GSM services by mid-2009 and the revenue strategy will be to focus on building market share in the incoming international roaming segment.
“Targeting the in-roaming international travellers, RCom’s GSM services will eye a sizable revenue of the Rs6,000 crore (annual) international roaming market segment," sources said.
RCom spokesperson, however, declined any comment on the GSM strategy.
Industry observers said that RCom has to be innovative to start making money. After Government allowed unlimited players in the circles, there are at least 12 players now in a given area.
The top 10 Indian cities account for almost 80% of the incoming international roaming revenue, which is approximately $1 billion (Rs4,800 crore) annually.
The Anil Ambani company plans to roll out GSM services in 14 circles by the end of calendar 2008 in addition to the few circles, in which it is already offering GSM services.
The company currently has 40,000 towers and it plans to add another 8,000 by the end of the current fiscal, thus bringing the total tower capacity to 48,000.
This is part of RCom’s capex strategy in line with its GSM service launch. Each tower has a tenancy ratio of 3.5 (per tower) scalable to 4.
At the end of Q2, RCom has posted a 17.3% growth in net profit in the July-September quarter. Its consolidated net profit grew to Rs1,531 crore in the second quarter of the current year as over 5.2 million users signed up for services during the period.
The company saw 23.3% rise in revenue to Rs5,645 crore. Of this, Rs4,119 crore (65%) came from wireless business. Its global business, comprising national and international long distance voice, video and data services, contributed Rs1,526 crore or 24% to total revenue.
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