Month: July 2013

What is Reliance Jio Infocomm’s Game Plan for 4G LTE ?

by

For markets like India and Africa, the data growth story is linked to low cost smart-phones. With LTE deployments taking place simultaneously in India and the globe, Indian operators face a big challenge in terms of driving LTE economics. India would lag the US in LTE affordability by 11 years based on a 20% yearly rate of decline in technology costs and by 5 years based on a 40% yearly rate of decline in technology costs.

All BWA operators in India will launch the TD version of LTE and their fate is somewhat dependant on the progress made by China Mobile. China Mobile will not be entirely dependant on low-cost smartphones to drive traction on LTE. Indian operators, on the other hand, may have to wait for the LTE ecosystem to align

Read more

Telecom Infrastructure for 3G, 4G LTE – Views of Tower Company CEOs

by

The tower industry is a derivative of the telecom service sector. 2009 witnessed tremendous growth in the sector owing to network rollout and coverage expansion by the greenfield and established operators, respectively. In the backdrop of this we asked few questions to India’s Largest Tower Company CEO DS Rawat of Bharti Infratel and Sudhir Prasad of TowerVision Private Limited.

How will the rollout of 3G and BWA services impact the telecom tower industry?
Sudhir Prasad: Low fixed-line penetration in India has been an impediment for the uptake of broadband services. Wireless broadband will bridge the gap and usher India to “broadband revolution”. To monetize the outlay on airwaves and capital expenditure, operators are expected to market data-rich services. Initially, the tower industry will benefit in terms of increased tenancies due to overlay in networks, resulting in additional revenues. However, with uptake of data services and congestion in the existing spectrum, the need for additional towers and anchor tenants would become inevitable. It is imminent for the tower companies to innovate and make the business case viable

Read more

DRAM demand driven by smartphones, tablets and ultramobiles

by

SmartPhones Driving DRAM Demand GloballyWith almost no growth in DRAM wafer capacity, and slowed technology migration, we believe DRAM supply bit growth will hover around 20% in 2013 and move up to 28% in 2014.

DRAM demand from traditional PCs to decline in 2013-2015, due to PC unit decline and low DRAM content growth (5% per year). However, we believe the fast growing tablets and ultramobiles (PCtablet hybrids) will more than make up for the PC DRAM demand decline. High-end tablets and ultramobiles use mobile DRAM, but we expect the mid- to low-end segment to use PC DRAM instead on cost concerns.

We expect smartphones to consume more DRAM than PCs in 2014. Not only is their unit growth fast (40% in 2013E and 26% in 2014E), but their

Read more

Q1-2013 Results expectations 2% Increase in QoQ RPM for A-Vo-Id Group

by

Mobile Revenues IndiaThe continued withdrawal of discounts/ promotions [Airtel here Vodafone here, and Idea here A-Vo-Id Group], the June quarter could be the first quarter of material RPM increase. Our checks suggest a 2% QoQ RPM increase could be reported (two-thirds of our full-year number) in 1Q14. We build a slight drop in MOU on account of elasticity. It will be interesting to see the elasticity behaviour. We build in a slight decline in MOU, though our interactions with operators indicate that they have not seen any elasticity.

Even as we expect the voice RPM uptick to be modest, we believe this marks a turn in RPM trajectory that should hold for some time. More importantly, pricing-led growth has benefits in

Read more

HTC Caught on Wrong Foot as SmartPhne Market Shifts Focus to Low / Mid End Phones

by

HTC Mobile OneHTC is caught on the wrong foot due to the decelerating growth of the high-end smartphone market and HTC’s weak position in the mid-low-end market. HTC is still facing structural challenges from smartphone demand polarization and commodization. Competition could be more intense when high-end makers put more emphasis on mid/low-end products, and low-end makers seek for product upgrades.

HTC’s over-concentration on the new One model (other models are weaker than expected in terms of shipments) could cause high earnings risk for HTC. Now we believe that the risk could come earlier than expected as – high-end smartphone growth is decelerating recently, which will put HTC in a weak position as its product mix highly

Read more

Broadband / Mobile Internet in India @ Tipping Point – Big Take Off

by

Broadband Internet in India - Big Take OffIndia’s internet story is at a tipping point, underpinned by favourable demographics, expanding access to high-speed wireless networks, cheaper broadband connections, and a proliferation of cheaper devices. By 2015, we estimate India’s internet user base to rise to 300m, almost 3x the current base. Large, single-ticket deal sizes of private equity and venture capital funds indicate that well positioned companies are set for rapid growth.

A number of enabling factors for driving up India’s internet penetration are now in place. Affordability has increased due to lower access charges

Read more

How LinkedIn Poses a Threat to Naukri’s Old Recruting Model ?

by

LinkedIn Eating into Naukri Recruiting BusinessNaukri emerged as India’s Largest Recruiting Platform in the old fashioned way of connecting Job Seekers with Employers. Ability to mine the potential candidate database, short-list relevant candidate profiles, manage their response and the ease/efficiency of doing the same are the most critical factors on which the efficacy of the recruitment service depends. While Naukri.com has been able to sustain its market share through effectively implementing these, alternate sources of recruitment like social recruitment (Linkedin) and advanced search technologies (like semantic search) have emerged.

Linkedin originally a professional networking portal

Read more

Amazon’s Subscriber & Save Offerings – Traction in Grocery a Surprise

by

Amazon Subscribe and Save GrocerySubscribe & Save has multiple benefits for AMZN, as it increases user purchase frequency and Amazon’s share of wallet within the $285bn consumables (ex fresh) market. Subscribe & Save is also a form of behavior modification, as habitual subscription-based ordering has the potential to alter consumers’ traditional offline shopping behavior and traffic flow. Not surprisingly, the most penetrated categories so far are Grocery (~4%), Beauty (~1%), and Health & Personal Care (~1%).

Subscribe & Save is essentially Amazon’s version of automatic replenishment. It offers users discounted prices on select items (typically sold in bulk) when they choose to have them automatically replenished from Amazon.com at regular, pre-determined intervals (every 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 months, etc.) (see below). This service

Read more

Korean Telcos to Double 4G/LTE Speeds – Airtel & Reliance Jio Infocomm Listening ?

by

Kora LTE Speed DoublesDuring July-October 2013, Korea Telecom will double the data allowance for subscribers that are on its 4G LTE tariff plans that offer ‘unlimited’ voice. (Please refer to our sector report from 11 April 2013 for more details on ‘unlimited’ voice tariff plans.) Korean consumers already enjoy real speeds of 10-30Mbps on 4G LTE networks, and operators are increasing speeds further through 4G LTE-Advanced. As such, we may be reaching a level where mobile data speed difference is not noticeable for most users.

SKT has announced that it will be offering higher data speeds through 4G LTE-Advanced technology. We think this may have caused concerns for KT about falling behind in competition until KT is also able

Read more

How Sohu Winning the Internet Battle with Local Apps in China ?

by

Sogou is considered a core business for Sohu, with a product offering that includes Pinyin, browser and search. Further, Sogou has reported strong growth in recent quarters. It is a source of innovation for the company and its apps provide Sohu with a mobile starting page.

Sogou’s core products are Pinyin, browser and search. Sogou Pinyin is the top software application for Chinese language input, with 88% penetration based

Read more