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We call it the 'storm after the lull'. Lull after the storm is a phrase with which everybody is familiar. However, to describe the kind of growth that the wireless equipment market witnessed last year, we have twisted the phrase. It was storm after the lull because after witnessing a dramatic fall in FY 2003–04, wireless equipment market scaled a new high as both CDMA and GSM operators went on expanding. And every equipment vendor cashed in on a booming market. The overall market size of the carrier equipment was estimated to be around Rs 14,102 crore. This is a jump of 71 percent from Rs 8,247 crore in FY 2003–04. Wirless equipment contributed 80 percent to the overall pie.

On the other hand, just like the global trend, the wireline infrastructure market continued to decline in India as well. The slowdown in deployment of wireline networks affected both the MNCs and domestic telecom equipment manufacturers. The affect has been more severe on the domestic manufacturers, as their capabilities are largely on the wireline side. However, despite a decline in wireline subscriber base both BSNL and MTNL added capacity. Bharti also bought wireline equipment.

For all practical purposes, action on the wireline front has now shifted to broadband. In fact, FY 2004–05 was a watershed year for broadband equipment market in India. As telcos focused on data and applications for enhancing their margins, broadband emerged as the natural gainer. They were aided in their efforts by the falling equipment prices. Also, even though National Broadband Policy of the government didn't have anything significant to offer, it did give a momentum-at least to BSNL and MTNL's efforts. DSLAM vendors like UTStarcom, Ericsson, Huawei, and Siemens did well while Cisco entered the market with a big metro Ethernet deal with VSNL.

A significant development last year was the revival of telecom cables industry. Even though the industry is still in a bad shape, the steep decline that it had witnessed in FY 2003–04 appears to have been checked. It recorded nearly 119 percent growth in FY 2004–05.

The transmission equipment market also saw a lot of action with many new players coming in and challenging the established ones. While Nortel continued to lead the market, ECI Telecom emerged as the number two player. At the third spot was Siemens. Chinese vendors like ZTE and WRI got good orders. Tejas also did well.

In the service provider OSS/BSS market, billing continued to form the largest component of the market, at an estimated 70 percent of the pie. This was largely because while Indian operators started investing in OSS/BSS solutions to an extent, they are yet to pay the due emphasis on all components of OSS/BSS.

Even though European and US vendors still dominate the Indian carrier equipment market, Chinese vendors are increasingly going to make a dent in their share. They made a beginning past year.

Ravi Shekhar Pandey