Telecom: R Com & Tata Tele services

GSM, not CDMA, ringing in growth for RCom, Tata Tele:

While both the players have been maintaining that their move to enter GSM space did not mean that they were going slow on expanding CDMA business, the trends in subscriber addition indicate a different story

Mobile operators that migrated to the dual technology in 2008 are adding more subscribers on their GSM network than on their CDMA system.

TRAI Data:

According to the data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the CDMA subscriber base of operators including Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and HFCL Infotel Ltd have gone up only marginally ever since they launched GSM services.

Tata Teleservices, for example, had added 38.1 million GSM subscribers by September 2010 since they launched services in June 2009. During this period the CDMA user base of the operator by just about 3 million from 38 million in June 2009 to 40.9 million by September.

Similarly, RCom got 41.2 million GSM subscribers since its launch in December 2008, even as its CDMA subscriber base increased by just about 6.5 million from 48.6 million to 55.2 million. Going by the current rate of growth the two operators will soon have more GSM subscribers on their network than CDMA even though they had launched the latter network more than seven years ago.

While both the players have been maintaining that their move to enter GSM space did not mean that they were going slow on expanding CDMA business, the trends in subscriber addition indicate a different story.

Industry sources said that the two operators may be following a strategy whereby they are loading up voice subscribers on their GSM network, while leaving their CDMA spectrum for high speed data services. Both RCom and Tata Tele have launched 3G-enabled data cards on their CDMA network.

This is the first time TRAI has revealed the GSM subscriber base of the two operators.

Till now the operators were reporting combined subscriber base including both GSM and CDMA users.

Industry analysts said that the subscriber numbers were not surprising and in line with the overall preference for GSM in the Indian market.