Balancing Wireless and Wireline

Fiscal 2002-03 was not too great for Siemens Public Communication Networks (SPCNL),
the No 6 position holder, in the V&D100 Club of equipment vendors. The
company registered a 8.2 percent growth in its annual sales.

SPCNL was balancing between wireless and wireline markets last year. It
supplied GSM infrastructure worth Rs 470 crore to BSNL, Bharti, Hutchison-Essar,
BPL, Spice and Aircel Digilink. The company has a 25 percent market share in the
GSM switch segment which made it the second largest player in the segment. On
the other hand, it had a mere 7 per cent share in the radio infrastructure
market with deployments in just 5 of the 68 circles. Here it was the fourth
largest player. The company maintained its number one position in the prepaid
service technology.

The company had a 17 percent share in the wireline voice switch market in
2002-03 worth Rs 275 crore. It supplied 500,000 lines to BSNL while Bharti
bought 250,000 odd lines from Siemens. The TAX contract of Bharti Telesonic was
also placed on Siemens.

CEO : Werner Schachermeier Area of Operation : Telecom Equipment Employees : 800 Address : 484-485, Phase III, Udyog Vihar Sector 20, Gurgaon 122016 (Haryana) Tel : 0124- 2345100, 5004100 Fax : 0124 - 2345112 Web Site : www.siemens.com

SPCNL did significant amount of business in the carrier router space, selling
170 carrier class routers valued at Rs 45 crores, and executed orders worth Rs
160 crores in optical transmission equipment and OFC accessories.

For FY 2003-04, SPCNL will also focus on GSM (R), the wireless standard for
railway communications. SPCNL plans to increase its headcount in software
development from 400 to 500 people, to focus on location-based services, and MMS
for both GSM and UMTS. Systems integration R&D for Indian pre-paid
operators, which was being done from Munich, will happen at Bangalore.