With errant power supply system in the country and along with newer technologies available in the UPS space, it is only natural that the future for the UPS market is bright. It is now seen as an important IT investment status.

n Hot Sectors: The telecom, banking and finance, and manufacturing are the key buyers of the UPS systems. Large enterprises have been going in typically for the 5 kVA online UPS. Telecom services segment is highly lucrative. Reliability is the catchword. The exchanges of networks, the server farms of Internet Data Centers (IDCs), the hubs of satellite service providers, the gateways of international long distance operators, modem pools of ISPs … all need redundant and efficient power supply.

n Size: In fiscal 2001-02, DC power systems, used mainly in telecom switches, generated sales of Rs 450 crore. That is growing even more rapidly. BSNL has the biggest buyer, contributing roughly 70 percent of sales. The private sector service providers, which contribute the rest, are however expected to contribute to future growth as a number of players roll-out their basic, cellular, and long distance networks. Reliance, Tatas, and the fourth cellular operators have made significant investments in 2002.

n Movers: Traditionally, telecom power systems was the domain of big vendors like Lucent, Ericsson, and Nortel. They used to either manufacture their own brands or bundle others products with their mainline telecom equipment. However, things are changing. Telecom equipment providers are concentrating only on core areas and getting out of the rest. Lucent has sold its power division to Tyco; Ericsson, Nortel, and Huawei to Emerson. Even the bundling practice is slowly going out of practice as customers start preferring independent vendors for not only cutting out the margin taken by the switch vendors but also for their focused expertise in power systems.

International companies are now directly getting involved in the Indian market, by buying out their Indian JV partners or expanding their small operations into full-fledged ones. Tata Liebert is now Emerson; Invensys has come out of its CG days; APC is spreading its wings into the telecom space.

n Service: Another important trend coming to the forefront has been services. Players like Tyco and Emerson are building services division not only to design and implement the solutions, but also to maintain and mange them. There are discussions that they would look at the entire power life cycles.

EXPERTS PANEL SS Bapat, vice-president, solutions, Emerson Network Power (India). Sambhaji Wagh, applications engineering manager (Asia), Singapore, APC.