Bharti Airtel Bids for Videocon’s 4G LTE 1800 Band Spectrum

by

Airtel 4G LTE Spectrum Bid on VideoconSunil Mittal led Bharti Airtel announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire right to use 2X5 MHz spectrum in the 1800 MHz 4G LTE band from Videocon. This deal, if concluded, will mark Videocon’s exit from the telecom market. This deal happened amidst the cancellation of earlier sale of Videocon’s spectrum to Idea Cellular. The acquired spectrum in all six circles (valid until December 18, 2032) is contiguous in nature and can be used to offer LTE data services. The acquisition will further strengthen Airtel’s 4G LTE footprint, with LTE (both FDD and TDD) spectrum covering 93% of its overall revenue or 19 out of a total 22 circles.

Airtel will acquire Videocon’s spectrum (2X5 MHz in the 1800 MHz band) in six circles namely Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh,

Read more

Indian Internet Companies Revenues Soar, Losses Mount

by

Indian Internet Companies ProfitsAnalysis of recently reported 2015 financials of 22 unlisted e-commerce companies reveals some interesting trends: (1) these companies posted revenue growth of 191% yoy, with marketplaces leading the pack at 475% revenue growth (not GMV), (2) in most other categories (barring marketplaces), loss was magnified by high cash-burns from 1-2 players (for instance, housing.com in real estate). Several companies (general + real estate classified companies in particular) spent aggressively on advertising to gain traffic and market-share.

e-tailers is the only category where loss margin declined yoy (though loss in

Read more

State of Mobile Wallets / Payments in India

by

Mobile Wallets in IndiaPayTM, Mobikwik and Freecharge (owned by Snapdeal) are the biggest independent online wallet companies in India with claimed registered wallets of 120mn/25mn and 20mn respectively. Apart from them some telecom companies (Vodafone, Airtel, Idea ) and banks (SBI, ICICI, HDFC etc.) have their own online wallet services. The online wallet was initially developed as a means of enabling mobile recharges for consumers, which was subsequently, expanded to PayTV and utility bill payment services.

Some of the wallets companies like PayTM, telco and banking wallets etc have received

Read more

How Private Cloud Differs from Traditional on-premise Computing ?

by

Private Cloud vs Traditional HardwareMany users describe private cloud as having an Amazon AWS-like environment within their own data center. This is where software developers/engineers can easily and quickly request and receive application infrastructure, just like they can on Amazon AWS. The difference is that the underlying servers, storage and network is wholly owned and dedicated to the organization instead of rented through AWS or other public cloud vendors. A private cloud can be within the organization’s own physical data center or owned, dedicated (not shared like public cloud) and managed by a third party.

Compared to a traditional computing infrastructure, private clouds require five main components: IaaS software

Read more

Reliance Jio Launch Delayed / MisQuoted ?

by

Reliance Jio LaunchMedia articles have stated that Jio launch is once again being delayed with expected timeline for launch now being 2H16 (versus our initial expectation of April-June timeframe), a recent company insider has mentioned that Jio launch is not being postponed and that there was a misquote. While we believe that few months of delay would not materially derail Jio’s proposition to consumers we think that the network is ready and working fine.

Our checks indicate that Jio network quality is fine with the company being able to offer consistent 10-15 Mbps speeds except for Rural Areas and Outskirts of Cities. We think that the company would have a circle-by-circle launch rather

Read more

Alipay / WeChat – Tenpay – Leaders in Chinese Online / Mobile Payments Market

by

Chinese Mobile Online Payment LeadersOnline payment is the basic infrastructure of internet finance. In China, online payment is essential for the development of the e-commerce market, as consumers need to complete the entire purchase process through online third-party payment services.

Launched in 2004, Alipay is now the largest third-party payment service provider in China, taking a 47.6% market share in the third-party payment market of China in 3Q15, according to iResearch. In April 2015, Alipay disclosed monthly active users (MAU) at 270 mn, from 190 mn in Oct 2014, with an average of 45 mn daily transactions. We estimate that Alipay has around 500 mn annual active users.

Alipay has established partnerships with

Read more

Can Just Dial Reverse Slowing Network Effect with Omni / Search Plus Launch ?

by

Just Dial Slowing Sales - Omni SME LaunchJust Dial’s revenue growth for Core Search business has decelerated meaningfully over the last few quarters. While growth may have bottomed out, the initiatives taken by the management will take a few quarters to yield results, in our view. Management reiterated that the slowdown in revenue growth was not led by any increase in competitive activity, but due to a lesser focus internally on the search business. It plans to add 2,000-2,500 people to its sales team (both tele-sales and “feet on street”) over the next 9-10 months, which should address the issue of growth.

The total listings on Just Dial platform is ~16mn and it has the potential to move up to 20-25mn. It is planning to start a program of

Read more

Blind Gaming by Incumbents Amidst Reliance Jio Launch

by

Mobile Broadband Vs VoiceGiven the impending threat of Reliance Jio entry, incumbents – Airtel, Vodafone & Idea have accelerated the pace of mobile broadband data network rollout in a blind game forgetting the Economics of Return on Investments. Cumulatively, they have added 72.8K 3G/4G BTSs over the past four quarter (total installed base of 172.5K), with Airtel having added 35.7K, Idea 19.8K and Vodafone 17.3K during the quarter. Idea increased its capex guidance to INR75bn (from INR60-65bn earlier), the third increase in capex guidance over the last 9 months (1.5x of initial guidance), on account of faster data rollout.

Two key debates would continue for the sector – 1) pricing vs volume and what it does to the market dynamics; and 2) capex intensity vs returns – how much is enough given the slowing mobile data growth [3G / 4G].

Idea which in the past has

Read more

TRAI NetNeutrality Regulations Impact on Airtel Wynk / Jio Mags – Play – Beats Apps

by

TRAI Net Neutrality Exploit WeaknessThough TRAI accepted / acknowledged most of our Regulations on NetNeutrality one of them is highly debatable and can create lot of controversy. In TRAI’s Consultation Paper [CP] the fourth question posed was – Is there any other issue that needs to be considered. We at DSLIndia have been tracking the Indian Telecom Sector for over 15 years and we know the pulse of each of the service provider. Our goal is to Maximize revenue to the Government and bat for high quality consumer experience. In this backdrop, we went into Out of the Box Thinking Mode and it is we who brought this idea to light to the officials of the TRAI to keep the entire Telecom Network Neutral and made the following suggestion, [Source PDF]

Read more

TRAI Regulation on Net Neutrality – Most of Our Recommendations Accepted

by

TRAI Accepts DSLIndia Recommendations on Net NeutralityTime for some self pat as TRAI accepts most of our Out of the Box Recommendations on Net Neutrality in India and structuring their final Regulations based on the core points we have highlighted in our compilation which is available here [PDF].

TRAI Recommendations released just a while ago on Net neutrality is available here [13MB PDF File].

Everybody have opposed Differential Pricing of Data Tariffs, so we will not take credit for the same, but here are some of the Unique Points which were addressed only by DSLIndia’s Telecom Analysts and acknowledged by the TRAI in its Regulations which are notified for Gazette Publication.

1. If you have read through

Read more