Business Communications

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The definition

of business communications is changing. Value and not units is deciding the investment

decisions. The decision making is shifting from administration to technology domain. As

businesses are becoming more customer oriented, technology investments are going to the

front-office technologies. So voice mail, CTI and call centre are more in the corporate

users’ mind than the fax machines and telephone instruments.

EPABX

• Despite a slowdown in corporate spending on
  
  technology, the EPABX market actually registered a growth.
• The total EPABX market in 1998-99 is estimated to
  
  be of the order of Rs 260 crore, 18.2 percent up from an estimated size of Rs 220 crore in
  
  1997-98. This includes all sizes of EPABXs–low-end, high-end, and medium-end but
  
  excludes KTSs.
• EPABX, sales of which has a direct co-relation
  
  with number of telephone lines added, however, did not keep pace with the growth of DELs.
  
  This anomaly is explained by the fact that the EPABX market follows the growth of the new
  
  telephone connections, by a period of six-nine months. As much as 56.5 percent of DELs
  
  added last year were added in the last quarter of JFM ’99. The impact of that will
  
  take some time to reflect in the growth of EPABX sales.
• The low-end (below 48 port) segment has registered
  
  a growth of 20 percent, thanks to a change in market moods in the third quarter. Many
  
  first time deployments happened pushing the total sales in this segment to an estimated Rs
  
  48 crore, up from Rs 40 crore last year.
• In the mid-range (48-100 ports), the growth was
  
  much less because of a slowdown in the large businesses, a virtual stagnancy in
  
  replacement sales, and KTS eating into this market. The market grew by 15 percent from
  
  last year’s estimated sales of Rs 80 crore in 1997-98 to a total of Rs 92 crore in
  
  1998-99.
• alt="seg_business2.gif (13276 bytes)" align="right" hspace="4" vspace="4"> face="Times New Roman" size="2">The high-end EPABX (more than 100 lines) market grew
  
  moderately as it recorded a total sales of Rs 120 crore, a growth of 20 percent over the
  
  previous year. The growth, however, was far from uniform across vertical segments. Most of
  
  the sales happened in the private telecom operators, especially the paging operators. The
  
  banking/finance segment also contributed to the growth.
• After-sales support has become a significant area
  
  of revenue generation for the industry. About 8-9 percent of revenues of established
  
  players came from that.
• The per line price of EPABX, which was showing a
  
  decline in the high-end market actually has stabilised. At the high-end, the average price
  
  remains at around Rs 5,300, only marginally lower than the figure in 1997-98.
• The players were the familiar faces. While Tata
  
  Telecom, Siemens, Nortel, BPL, and Alcatel remained the top players in the high-end
  
  segment, in the medium-end, Tata Telecom, Usha Informatics, BPL, Siemens, and Alcatel were
  
  dominant. The low-end had too many players. The major names were Accord, Syntel, Matrix,
  
  Ruchi, Star, and L&T.
• Tata Telecom is the undisputed number one with as
  
  much as 28 percent marketshare. Though exact break-ups are difficult to estimate, it can
  
  be assumed that its marketshare is even more in the high-end segment. Siemens comes a
  
  distant second with about 16 percent marketshare. Other overall major players are Alcatel,
  
  Nortel, Arvind Telecom, and Crompton Greaves. This is in terms of total business done
  
  across all segments. Individual segment-wise break-ups are difficult to estimate, on the
  
  wake of companies not sharing the break-up details.
• This year, the market is expected to register a
  
  better growth. The factors that will influence the growth of EPABX sales in India are
  
  quick deployment of telephone connections, new corporate offices, and growth of CTI
  
  market.
• India is expected to be a base for global offshore
  
  call centres. If and when that happens, there will be a boom in the sales of very high-end
  
  EPABXes, whose sales are now confined to only the hospitality industry, with banking and
  
  telecom following.

contd.>>>>

color="#000000">NIC
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The Top Brands
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D-Link	24.80
Compex	20.35
3Com	9.10
Intel	6.75
Accton	5.27
Hub
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The Top Brands
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3Com	20.37
D-Link	17.30
Nortel	11.30
Compex	8.07
Accton	2.81
Enterprise Switch
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Cisco	59.30
Cabletron	48.50
Nortel	22.90
3Com	22.66
Newbridge	17.50