Idea, LG, Cisco walk away with top telecom honors

Leading telecom magazine, Voice & Data, adjudged Idea Cellular as the top cellular company of the year beating favorites Bharti Cellular and Hutchison Telecom in the race. Idea Cellular was the number one in revenue with a turnover of Rs 600 crore during 2001-02 registering a growth of 48.5 percent over the previous fiscal. Even in terms of subscriber base, the company registered the fastest growth at 135.35 percent touching a base of 808,676 as compared to 343,606 during the last fiscal. 

Favorites Hutchison Max Telecom registered a growth of 68.2 percent in subscriber base and 19.1 percent growth in turnover, while Bharti Cellular grew by 19.14 percent in revenue but lost marketshare by nine percent down to 56.96 percent in the Rs 943 crore Delhi market.

LG Electronics emerged the fastest growing telecom company, with an installed base of over four lakh lines. Another six lakh lines are in the process of being installed taking LG's total lines to one million soon. In networking equipment products, Cisco was once again the undisputed leader beating Enterasys by a massive margin of Rs 615
crore. 

State owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) was adjudged the top fixed services company second time in a row. Accepting the award, Prithipal Singh, CEO, BSNL said that there was no question of an onslaught from private operators. He said that the opportunity for fixed telephony in the country was so huge that there was enough space to accommodate all the players. Singh said, "We have only just covered a fraction of the potential."

Spectramind became the top call center company of the year on the basis of the number of seats. Raman Roy, CEO Spectramind said that India has only scratched the surface of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) wave and there was still immense opportunity. The country therefore needs to address the scenario by sensitizing the educational system to the needs of the sector.

Other winners included Sterlite Optical (top telecom cable company); Agilent Technologies (Top T&M equipment company); National Panasonic (Top KTS company);
Tata Telecom (Top private switching company) and Gilat Satellite Networks (Top VSAT company).

The awards were given away by YS Rajan, co-author with the APJ Abdul Kalam, of India 2020--A vision for the new Millennium and Empowering Indians. Speaking on the occasion, Rajan said that India offered huge opportunities for enterprising people since there was so much left to be done. At the same time, he said it was possible for India to achieve respectable levels of development by the tear 2020. He stressed that India will need to look at low-productivity jobs also in order to carry the entire population to progress. The book Vision 2020 broadly explores the possibility for India to embark on the development path without giving a prescription for the same. Rajan said that it is for entrepreneurs to be imaginative and figure out at the micro level. 

Prominent industry people attending the function included Sarvjit Singh Dhillion, CEO, AirTel Delhi, Himanshu Kapania, COO, Idea Cellular Delhi, NK Goyal, President, TEMA, Jagdish Devgan, Additional Director, ITI Ltd, Amitabh Singhal President ISPAI and PK Saha, GM, Marketing
MTNL.

Cyber News Service