The result, along with a detailed scorecard, is finally out. According to V&D 100—the Indian communications industry’s one and only end-to-end and most comprehensive national survey of telecom infrastructure, and enterprise equipment sales revenues, and communication services revenues—the total industry size was Rs 86,715 crore in the 2003–04 fiscal. This was a growth of 18 percent over the previous year.

This mammoth survey, which spanned over months and covered about 1,000 companies, big and small, further analyses the numbers. The overall Indian communications equipment industry went up by 14 percent to reach Rs 30,348 crore in FY 2003–04 against Rs 26,596 crore the previous year. Within that, while the enterprise communications equipment sales went up by 13 percent, telecom infrastructure equipment sales took a nosedive of 34 percent. Thanks to the great performance in GSM and CDMA handset sales, the overall growth was positive.

Continuing with the number crunching, which is the objective of V&D 100, the survey reveals that the communications services revenues reached Rs 56,367 crore last fiscal, which was about 20 percent more than the Rs 47,121 crore of the previous fiscal. It would be unjust to the VOICE&DATA team, which made this survey happen, for the ninth consecutive year, if I let everything out on the first page itself. So just read on. I must however thank our expert advisors and contacts in the industry for the incredible, albeit informal, support.

While V&D 100 is all about facts, figures, and analyses, the future of Indian telecom is not going to be about these numbers alone. While the race for numbers will continue, the coming years will also be about things like price, quality of service, flexibility in service, personalized services, and customer support. In other words, the future will be about value propositions.

Therefore, while investment on basic hardware for network expansion will continue in the long journey towards a higher tele-density, telcos will start looking at components that will make their value proposition to the users stronger. This means, there would be investments in OSS/BSS, applications, test & measurement equipment and services, and IT. The networks will have to get more intelligent and adaptive. Right now, the spending on these things is just a very tiny dot on the big telecom map.

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This also means that operators will look at processes (both internal as well as those for dealing with customers) more seriously. Right now they are almost non-existent in our country. For instance, there are telcos which can flash an ISO 9000 certification, but one phone call to their customer support center will reveal how process oriented they really are.

All in all, it was a great year for communications. The same is being seen on the IT front too. With IT and communications getting more and more interdependent for growth, the result could be a multiplier effect. The government needs to recognize this, and the industry needs to capitalize on this. If that happens, growth in IT and communications will keep feeding each other, and the multiplier effect will reach its end beneficiary too—the end user.

Ibrahim Ahmad