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India has 3rd largest telecom market: PwC report
By siliconindia
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Saturday, 15 December 2007, 02:46 IST
New Delhi: Indian telecom market has grown to become the third largest communications market in the world, despite the war over spectrum and differences amongst operators.
India's telecom market has grown rapidly in the last few years with revenues of over $22 billion and an average annual subscriber growth of about 45 percent and revenue growth of about 25 percent, said a newly released report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
The PwC report expects Indian telecom sector to scale new frontiers, building on its strong foundations of fulfilling the demand for a connected economy, fast paced rollouts and coverage, and realistic pricing.
"The tele-density of India at about 23 percent coupled with its billion-plus population offers immense growth potential for the telecom services sector in the coming years when compared with growth expectations from most developed markets with tele-densities of over 70-80," said the report.
The PwC report said, "The attraction of the Indian growth potential seems higher when it is compared even with its Asian neighbours such as Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, that have higher tele-densities but much smaller population base."
The strong growth expectations in the Indian telecom sector compared to near matured markets in developed countries is attracting foreign direct investments as well as institutional investments including significant private equity (PE) inflow in the country.
Cumulative FDI inflow has reached nearly $5 billion dollars in the sector, majority of which has been targeted toward the mobile sector. It is estimated that in 2006 that PE funds flow directed at the telecom sector was more than $3 billion and accounted for over 40 percent of all private equity deals in India.