Airtel has more than 100 million subscribers and BSNL has half as much. But, BSNL’s revenues was more than Airtel’s until now. For the first time Airtel has surpassed BSNL to become country’s number one telecom operator in terms of subscribers and revenues.

 

There is a drop of 0.4% in BSNL’s revenues when compared with the previous fiscal year. Airtel has increased its revenues by 39.8%  – a very impressive growth.

BSNL did not face the heat until now as the revenues weren’t dipping. That doesn’t hold good any more and it has to buck up or revamp before it turns into an Air India. BSNL doesn’t have the same kind of excuses of Air India as it operates in a lucrative telecom market.

The other operator which has seen a drop in revenues is MTNL. This is in spite of all the 3G spectrum and the leg-up both BSNL and MTNL got from the government. Giving subsidies and special treatment doesn’t work after all.

Reliance saw a decent growth of 23.1% and its revenues are 22341 crores. It is 3rd in line. The best growth in revenues was by IDEA Cellular at 50.7%.

Airtel and Reliance are the 2 India based operators to feature in the top 20 telecom operators by subscribers.

Top 10 telecom service providers by revenues :

Rank Operator Revenues
2006-07		 Revenues
2007-08		 Revenues
2008-09		 Growth %
1 Bharti Airtel 17888 26436 36962 39.8
2 BSNL 40135 35296 35167 -0.4
3 Reliance 14468 18638 22341 23.1
4 Vodafone 10565 15477 22224 43.6
5 IDEA Cellular 4413 6720 10125 50.7
6 Tata Comm 8857 8263 9963 20.6
7 TTSL 5178 5993 6739 12.4
8 MTNL 4923 4729 4487 -5.1
9 Aircel 1507 2528 3425 35.5
10 TTML 1422 1730 1323 7.8

 

We haven’t seen the subscriptions and revenues of the new players like MTS India yet. There are few more like S Tel and Swan which are ready to join. Telecom sector is heating up is an understatement.

(Source)