As connectivity and bandwidth become the mantra to chant for a nation wanting to be a superpower, this sleepy sector of cables is suddenly active. Even before the DLD service is opened up, DTS is rapidly deploying optical fibres to pre-empt competition. As a result, the cable industry has grown sharply. Though separate figures were not available, the impressive growth in overall (JFTC and OFC) sales shows that the growth rate of OFC would actually be much faster.

• DTS added 63,265 rkm of OFC taking the total installed capacity in its network to 1.7 lakh rkm. It plans to add another 1 lakh rkm this year.

• Apart from DTS, private operators and utilities emerged as significant buyers. From as high as 96 percent in 2000, DoT’s share is expected to drop to below 60 percent by 2002 in terms of quantity purchased. It will be even less in terms of value as DoT plans to continue with 6 fibre cables, whereas most DLD operators will start with 12 or even 24 fibres.

• Voice & Data estimates the total telecom cable market to be about Rs 4,000 crore. It was a growth of 27 percent from the previous year’s Rs 3,150 crore.

• Rank	Company	Sales 2000 (Rs Cr)	Sales 1999 (Rs Cr)	Growth (%)
  1	Sterlite Industries	920	562	63.7
  2	Vindhya Telelinks	286.4	217.4	31.7
  3	Usha Beltron	265.1	243.9	8.7
  4	Finolex Cables	245.9	238	3.3
  5	Bhagyanagar Metals	157.5	121.9	29.2
  5	Birla Ericsson	157.5	126.1	24.9
  6	Paramount Comm.	129.6	74.1	61.1
  7	Aksh Optifibre Ltd	102.2	42.4	141
  8	Delton Cables	74.9	50.2	49.1
  9	Surana Telecom	68.7	30.4	125.6
  10	Tamilnadu Telecom	63.0	44.8	40.6

  The industry continued to remain fragmented with the V&D Top 10 players accounting for 55.63 percent of the total sales. However, they grew at 47 percent from Rs 1,513.2 crore to Rs 2,225.2 crore.

• JFTC accounted for 80 percent of the sales (Rs 3,200 crore). JFTC sales grew by 17 percent, while OFC sales grew by an impressive 92 percent. From 2000-01, OFC sale is likely to see three-digit growths, at least for two years. However, even JFTC sales, growing by less than 7-8 percent since 1996-97, grew by double the rate. This was because DoT that added about 4.9 million lines in 1999-00 did it through copper cables. The advent of DSL has made the JFTC industry hopeful.

• Sterlite continued to be the market leader with about 23 percent market share. Figures of other major players like HCL and Finolex could not be obtained. In their absence, Vindhya Telelinks and Usha Beltron are in number two and three spots respectively.

• The industry is facing a different sort of problem. The raw material for OFC is in short supply and the prices have also gone up in the international market. That led many major players to fail in delivering the orders in time, thereby affecting DoT’s plans. Among the bigger players, Aksh and Sterlite managed to deliver in time, while the companies that failed were Optel, Bhilai Wires, and RPG.

Other Players

HCL, Finolex, ARM, CMI, Sudarshan, Bhilai Wires, Optel, Torrent, RPG, Uniflex, HFCL, Telephone Cables, Gujarat Telephone Cables, and Gujarat Optical Communications.