Advertisment

Paging Services

author-image
VoicenData Bureau
New Update

The paging industry continued to apparently stagnate with

nothing going right for it in 1999-00. This was largely because of Government’s

apathy towards paging vis-a-vis the cellular industry. This also reflected

paging operators’ weak lobbying capacity.

Advertisment
Top Paging

Service Providers in India (in Terms of Turnover)
Rank Company Turnover



(Rs Cr)
1 DSS Mobile 54.75
2 EasyCall Group 40
3 Microwave Communication 29.9
4 RPG Paging 27.8
5 Pagepoint Services 26.63*
6 Modi Korea Telecom 10.05*
7 Punwire 4.00*
8 BPL  Wireless 4.00*

*V&D estimate

Source: V&D 100

Last year, Max Page and Usha Martin Telecom surrendered their

licences. The former was part of cash-rich Hutchison Max Telecom operating in

Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Vadodara, Chandigarh, and Ludhiana. Usha

Martin operated in Jaipur, Rajkot, Indore, Vizag, Cochin, Coimbatore, and

Madurai. There are strong indications that some more are on their way out.

This is good as well as bad. Good because the reduction in

the number of players is likely to result in consolidation as there were more

than the required numbers of players. It is bad because it has sent wrong

signals to the banks and financial institutions. The paging operators were

looking to them for bailing them out of the current debts.

Advertisment

On the hardware front also most of the pager manufacturing

companies (except for SM Telesys Ltd) are on their way out. Motorola, Casio, and

NEC are reported to be on the verge of exiting from the pager market altogether.

SM Telesys holds more than 50 percent of the market share. What these companies

are selling are old stocks or importing on a limited scale to fulfil plummeting

demands. Others import directly from Hong Kong.

Snapshot
Top Service Provider



DSS Mobile


Top Paging Vendor


SM Telesys


Total Services Market


Rs 200 Crore



Subscriber base also showed no signs of improvement. While 3

lakh new subscribers were added in 1999-00, ironically the same number

surrendered their subscription. Result: subscriber base remained stagnant at 6

lakh. DSS Mobile Communications, under the brand name Mobilink, remained the

number one player in terms of subscriber base.

Advertisment

The Hope

At a time when everybody is in a hurry to write its obituary

in India, there is a general agreement in the industry of paging making a

comeback in the next six months.

Top

Paging Service Providers in India



(in Terms of Subscribers)
Rank Company No. of Subscriber
1 DSS Mobile 1,78,341
2 PagePoint 87,377
3 RPG Paging 74,123
4 Matrix Paging 34,496
5 Modi Korea Telecom 32,990
6 ABC Communication 21,169
7 Telesystem 17,662
8 EasyCall 15,521
9 Nice Paging 10,000

Source: IPSA

Advertisment

Next>>>>

The Group on Telecom (GoT), which was constituted in January

1999, is reported to have completed its report with a package for the paging

industry. This is as under.

  • TRAI to come out with a new plan for payment of the

    pending licence fee.

  • WPC charges have been abolished. Earlier it was Rs 100

    per annum per pager.

  • The licence fee for the 4th and 5th year has been fixed

    at 5 percent and will be equal to this or less than this from 6th year

    onwards.

  • The licence fee on pager will also be brought down to 5

    percent.

  • Customs duty on pager will be brought down to 5 percent.

  • CPP to be implemented which will result in

    revenue-sharing between basic and paging operator.

There is a wide consensus in the industry that if the above

recommendations are implemented soon, the industry will not only break even, but

also generate revenue in the next six months.

Advertisment

The Silver Lining of the Year

n The boom in the call centre market has opened a

floodgate of opportunities for beleaguered paging operators. According to

NASSCOM-McKinsey projections, the remote customer interaction services or call

centre market will be around $1.6 billion by 2004 and a whopping $3.7 billion by

2008. Paging companies, by virtue of their existing call-handling expertise and

the infrastructure, will pose challenge to dedicated mainline call centre

companies in the coming months. Last year saw almost every paging company start

call centre services to various multinational companies as well as various

government bodies. Indore Municipal Corporation has tied up with Modi Korea

Telecom for handling its civic problems. The residents call up Modi’s call

centre number and lodge the complaint. The company processes the complaints and

forwards it to the municipality.

Easycall has also entered into it in a big way. It has tied

up with Asian Paints, Satyam Online, ANZ Grindlays, American Express, State Bank

of India, Citibank, ICICI, and HSBC and handles call for them. MobiLink and RPG

have also diversified into the area. MobiLink’s facility is the largest of

these with 100 live seats. It has clients like General Motors, Opel Astra,

Hyundai, and Fiat Auto among others.

Advertisment

Not to be left behind, Microwave Communication has also made

its foray into the call centre bandwagon. It has started off with dedicated

manpower to handle corporate clients like NIIT, Godrej GE, Crompton Greaves, BPL,

Ponds, and Amex. It has presently 45 persons handling those calls. The company

is planning to get aggressive on call centre. Most of these call centres are

domestic in nature. It is exploring the possibility of tying up with a foreign

major to provide offshore-outsourced call centre facility. As the worldwide

trend is towards outsourcing, there is enough room for paging companies to

garner a major chunk of this market. SM Telesys has entered into a strategic

tie-up with New York-based Esquire Electronics to set up 10,000-seat offshore

outsourced call centre in India.

n The order by the communication minister for buying of

pager for the line staff working in the state capitals for speedy rectification

of line faults was also a big boost. In addition to this, DoT has also ordered

for distribution of pagers to line staff of Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Ambala, Pune,

and Coimbatore secondary switching areas. This is seen by the industry as a

major push and it is looking forward to other government and public sector

organizations that are engaged in providing services to their customers.

The Future

Advertisment

Speedy implementation of GoT’s recommendations, accompanied

by a reduction in number of players (by way of surrendering of licences or

consolidation of operators) in the paging industry will be the key driver to

future growth. Other factors, like creating a genuine awareness about the

utility of pagers among the prospective users through aggressive promotion,

followed by intelligent marketing strategy will go a long way. Call centre foray

should be seen as an alternative revenue stream and this should not lead to

relegating of paging.

Another revenue model that the paging companies should

explore is the burgeoning e-commerce in India. They should target and convince

large e-commerce portals about the utility of pagers to streamline their

delivery mechanism resulting from e-commerce transaction. Some analysts even

feel that operators should also explore the possibility of providing free paging

services with revenue coming in from subscribers. Reducing rental can also

increase the subscriber base.

One shocking revelation was that some companies are looking the easy way,

targeting each other’s corporate customers, instead of difficult way of

creating a new customer base. Competition is fine, but at this point in time,

when the industry itself is passing through a rough patch, this is highly

uncalled for.

Click for 1998-99 Performance of Paging Services >>Page 1.

2.

Advertisment