Big Deal

Alcatel-Lucent recorded revenues of Rs 7,000 crore in FY 2007-08, up from Rs 5,000 crore in FY 2006-07, recording a 40% growth. The wireless segment continued to dominate its revenue share with around Rs 4,000 coming from the segment. The submarine business contributed Rs 2,000 crore and transmission around Rs 700-800 crore. Broadband and voice solutions contributed Rs 100 crore each.

A significant year for Alcatel and Lucent as the integration between the two companies was finally concluded. While Alcatel had a strong presence in GSM and wireless, Lucent was a dominant player in CDMA. The year gone by saw the merged entity leveraging the strength of both companies.

There were two significant deals for the company last year: a contract for 2 mn GSM lines with ITI for MTNL's network expansion in Mumbai, and another one with ITI for the supply of 2 mn GSM lines to BSNL. Besides, Alcatel-Lucent also got GSM and CDMA contract from Reliance. According to V&D estimates, the order size was between Rs 2,500-3,000 crore.

This year Alcatel-Lucent is focusing on broadband and WiMax. The company's C-Dot Alcatel Research Center (CARC) is also partnering with local application developers to ensure that applications such as e-governance, e-health, and e-education for the Indian market boost the WiMax ecosystem in the country. In contrast to last year, this year should see an increased revenue generation from the broadband segment.

Alcatel Lucent 4

There was a major management change in the organization. The year saw the departure of Ravi Sharma, president, South Asia Regional Unit. Vivek Mohan took over as country head, Indian operations.

Alcatel-Lucent has leadership focus in most areas it is operating in-wireline, wireless, convergence, enterprise and vertical business, and services business. Globally, Alcatel-Lucent is numero uno in the wireline segment. In the next few years, the company is planning to increase its share in the wireline segment, by utilizing its R&D expertise. Most of the big cellular operators like Bharti, Vodafone, and BSNL have given contracts to NSN and Ericsson. Alcatel-Lucent has to increase its presence in this segment to be in a leadership position.

This year, the company looks forward to increasing its focus on the services segment. The first major development for Alcatel-Lucent in the current year is the formation of a global joint venture with Reliance Communications. The joint venture company would foray into the managed network services industry and will cater to telecom operators, both CDMA and GSM, across the globe. The year ahead certainly looks promising for the company.

Our focus would be largely on broadband and WiMax

What were your achievements in the last financial year?
With the combined entity (Alcatel and Lucent merged in 2006) having both public and private customers in India, there lies a very exciting opportunity here. India as a market is maturing fast. There are lots of opportunities; the important part is to bridge the gap between rural and urban India. We also deal with most new players, like Videocon, Steller and AT&T, in the market.

We have widened our products portfolio at the global level. We have CDMA, 3G, WiMax, LTE, and 2GSM. Basically, we have everything that is required in the wireless segment, where we are the number one player globally. We deal with most operators in the market.

country head, Alcatel-Lucent

Vivek Mohan

Address: Alcatel South Asia, 14th Floor, Tower C, DLF Cyber Greens, DLF City Phase III, Gurgaon - 122 002 Haryana, India
Tel: +91-124-4159999
Fax: +91-124-4114307
Website: www.alcatel-lucent.com

Highlights

Growth rate of 40%
Focus areas are broadband and WiMax
Bagged a multi-million euro contract with ITI for BSNL's network expansion
Won a contract for 2 mn GSM lines with ITI for MTNL's network expansion

What would be your focus areas this year?
Our focus would be largely on broadband and WiMax, considering the huge market demand. We want to focus more on this and expand further. The broadband segment in India is actually not very good today as compared to the world scenario. The quality is poor but the average revenue per user is increasing.

The real driver for broadband in the country would be pricing, reliability, affordability, and availability. The emergence of new applications such as mobile banking is also creating a need of the broadband picture. The broadband explosion is going to happen only through the increase in various new applications. There are various new players who are also going to capitalize on this.

What key challenges are you facing in the country?
Given the low ARPUs that exist in markets such as India, equipment pricing is clearly the most important factor in securing a sound business case and driving an operator's growth. This is a constant challenge faced by all industry players. Since its inception, C-Dot Alcatel Research Center (CARC) products have been designed to offer robust performance at the lowest cost possible, and we will continue to stay ahead of the pricing pressures demanded by the market and other equipment suppliers.

Research is your strong focus area. What is happening on that front?
C-Dot Alcatel Research Center has successfully managed to bring new products to the market which are currently installed in a number of mobile WiMax networks worldwide. Further, CARC has reinforced its WiMax Partnership Center to encourage the development of the WiMax ecosystem, by forging alliance with local application developers to bolster the WiMax ecosystem in the country.

In May 2007, CARC won the Excellence in R&D Award at the first-ever National Telecom Awards 2007 conceptualized by TEMA. The award came as recognition for CARC's contribution toward developing affordable broadband solutions to meet the needs of India and other markets with similar needs in terms of bringing broadband in underserved areas.

We are positioning ourselves to offer not only boxes and network components but a complete solution that will help new companies to roll out new services at a faster pace.

We can deliver any solution that the operator demands; be it WiMax, CDMA, GSM, or WCDMA.