Indian telcos have the lowest amount of spectrum allocations among Asian peers – on a relative and absolute basis. In terms of subscribers per MHz metrics, Indian telcos are at 11-15mn vs. 3-5mn for the Chinese and 1-2mn for the Indonesian telcos. For this metric, we adjust subscriber numbers for multi SIM phenomena. Average spectrum for the Indian operators is sub-15MHz on 2.1GHz and lower frequencies, compared with 25MHz to 100MHz for its regional peers.
Total BTS numbers for the Indian telcos vary from 100-140k vs. 20-60k for the Indonesians and 200k to 1mn for the Chinese telcos. We acknowledge that BTS numbers on their own are not a complete gauge of coverage/capacity given spectrum and typography differences.