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The top five groups had a combined turnover of Rs 57,682 crore, a growth of 23.3 percent over last fiscal´s Rs 46,769 crore. Despite the huge inroads made by the private sector, the public sector undertakings continued to rule the roost in terms of total revenue. DoT (comprising BSNL, MTNL, ITI, and TCIL) contributed 69 percent of the top five revenues. BSNL was by far the biggest company in the group with a turnover of Rs 31,000 crore, while MTNL was a distant second with Rs 6,397 crore revenues. BSNL maintained a healthy growth at 19.7 percent while TCIL and MTNL had 8.8 percent and 6.2 percent growth respectively. ITI experienced negative growth.

There seems to be a widening gap in the performance levels of the two major companies spearheading DoT´s growth. While BSNL seems to have carved a unique place amongst service providers with its extensive reach and network, MTNL with its operations restricted to the two metros is facing the heat from private operators. Moreover, while BSNL has maintained its aggressive stand in emerging services like GSM, MTNL has been unable to leverage on such opportunities. However, with MTNL increasing focus on the overseas market and new customer initiatives, there seems to be some hope.

The Tata Group of telecom companies comes second in terms of revenue. A quiet player preferring to let its achievements do the talking, Tatas have drawn an aggressive pan-India strategy that will take them to new markets. Even though the group does not have a leadership position in any of the telecom services (except ILD), Tatas appeared to create a niche in the corporate connectivity market with an integrated marketing approach under TIEBU, set up last year. TIEBU has already earned Rs 1,000 crore revenues.

Bharti is the only pure-play integrated telecom player amongst private operators. Its telecom presence spreads across the entire spectrum of offerings, including manufacturing. With a pan-Indian presence, the Group has been a leader in the GSM space for long. But today its closest competitor, Hutch is fast catching up. It is also under threat from Reliance Infocomm´s CDMA-based services. Bharti is fighting back using its core positioning—service delivery.

The Reliance group created history of sorts with its massive 433 percent growth. It can be credited for rewriting the rules of the mobility game with its extraordinarily low pricing strategy. What´s more, the group is determined to bring data connectivity into the realm of the mobile world by aggressively pitching its wireless data services.

The Hutch group distinguishes itself on two fronts. It is the only MNC among the top five telecom groups and it is the only player with a pure-GSM focus. In an age of integrated service providers, Hutch has not only held its own turf, but has actually managed to emerge a leader in its space. Hutch is now closing the gap with its competitors and with the impending IPO, it can be expected to be flush with funds and give the competition sleepless nights.