With an estimated revenue of Rs 371 crore in 200-01, Spice Communication is the biggest among circle cellular operators. The company, operating in two of the most prosperous states of India, Karnataka and Punjab, achieved a growth of 55.1 percent in 2000-01 in the subscriber base and had a total base of 270,628 in both the circles, as of March 2001.

The company is the leader in Karnataka while it is the sole operator in Punjab. While till 1999-2000, it was way ahead of its competitor JT Mobile, the margin has come down after Bharti took a stake in the latter. Bharti has been aggressively marketing in Karnataka. In terms of revenue, Punjab contributed 53.7 percent, while Karnataka contributed 46.3 percent. Among the circle operators, Spice has one of the highest coverage in its circle, Punjab. Spice has tried unique ways of doing business. It is one of the first service providers to extend a lot of services available to the post paid customers to its prepaid customers, in Karnataka. In Punjab, Spice was one of the first companies to catch up on the content based applications.

With consolidation happening in the cellular front, most operators have aligned with each other. While three major groups have already emerged, Reliance has grand plans. Question is: will Spice/Modis be the fifth? Or will they join one of the camps?