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This has been a landmark year for the company with several distinctions to its credit. Nothing, perhaps, indicates the company´s coming of age as much as its smart move in snapping up the licenses of the ailing Escotel for Rs 1,150 crore in an all-cash deal. The deal has expanded its presence across three lucrative circles, along with a couple of licenses in the north. It doubled Idea´s operations from five circles to 11, putting it in the same league as Hutchison and Bharti.

Escotel has licenses for six circles, but operates services only in Kerala, Haryana, and UP (West). It is yet to start service in UP (East), Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh. And Idea has to decide whether to start services there or to sell those licenses. Idea will benefit immensely from this deal as most of Escotel´s circles are contiguous to Delhi. Moreover, as Escotel is a first licence holder, it has an incumbency advantage and operates in the 900-MHz frequency. The first two licence holders have managed to retain a lead all along and Idea´s experience in Delhi, as the fourth license holder, has been that infrastructure costs are 1.3 times more expensive in the 1800 MHz frequency and indoor coverage is not good either.

During the middle of FY 2003–04, Idea managed the remarkable feat of completing the largest-ever financial closure in Indian telecom, with project costs of over Rs 5,000 crore. The new long-term rupee facility of Rs 2,225 crore, syndicated by IDBI as the sole lead manager, includes Rs 1,850 crore for Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh circles, and Rs 375 crore for Delhi circle. The company is expected to invest Rs 300 crore in the Maharastra circle to upgrade the network to GPRS.

Subsequently, the company went on to achieve another first by rolling out the country´s first 100 percent EDGE-compatible network in Delhi. Targeted at the tech-savvy consumer who is always on the move, Idea Cellular´s EDGE-based services are expected to enable subscribers to download data at rates of 160 kbps.

The company later signed a $24 million deal with Nokia for the supply of GSM/GRPS network equipment and multimedia services across all its circles.

Recently the company had a change in the holding pattern when AT&T sold out its 33 percent stake to a consortium led by Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT) and Telekom Malaysia. Apart from strategic achievements, the company registered a 38 percent increase in revenues, up from Rs 951 crore in FY 2002–03 to Rs 1,313 crore in FY 2003–04. The subscriber base also grew, finally closing the year with 3.7 million subscribers, inclusive of the newly-acquired Escotel customers. The prepaid versus postpaid subscriber ratio stands at 80:20.

However, like others in the industry, ARPU has experienced negative growth over the previous fiscal. Anticipating a declining ARPU, the company had already focussed on building its VAS revenues with a well laid-out strategy for successful schemes like the M-coupon.

During the year, Idea introduced popular offerings like cellular jockey and music messaging, targeted at the youth. It also launched global SMS for the first time in the country, allowing users to send and receive SMSs from over 540 networks in 170 countries across all platforms—GSM, CDMA, TDMA, and satellite phones. Idea set up a string of customer care centers that facilitate access to a range of services across the country, called IdeaShops, and took their number to 150. The company´s appetite for growth remains unsatiated as it scouts for yet another acquisition during this calendar year. Idea is also contemplating an IPO during this year. This will probably facilitate the exit of promoters like Tata Sons.