Rank 58: Hughes Escorts Communications: Exploring Possibilities

For the country’s top VSAT service provider, which had achieved a good
growth of around 35 percent in 2000-01, when the overall industry had performed
badly, last year was not all that great. Thanks to increased competition. In
terms of the number of VSATs installed and commissioned in the FY 2001-02, HECL
installed 322 VSATs during the fiscal. In terms of market share, the company had
19.6 percent share–a big drop from 2000-01. The company says that lack of
bandwidth availability came in the way of its picking up large projects. The
good news was that it was able to bag 45 new accounts last year.

Among the
orders that HECL had in 2001-02 was that of Playwin Lotteries for installing
1,500 VSATs by May end.

Services accounted for around 42 percent of the revenues, which is highest
amongst all integrators. Products accounted for 58 percent of the total
turnover. This year HECL expects over 50 percent revenues from services. It has
launched DirecWay services based on Ku-band for corporates, SMEs, and the home
segment for intranet, extranet, and Internet kind of applications. DirecWay will
suit the corporate WAN communication between the office and the suppliers,
depots, C&F agents, service centers, and dealers. On the other hand,
DirecWay will be used by home users for Internet requirements.

Hughes Escorts Communications TURNOVER FACTSHEET CEO : Partho Bannerjee  Address : Plot No 1, Sector -18, Electronic City, Gurgaon 122 015  Tel  : 0124-6398834 Fax : 0124-6398840 Web site : www.hughes-india.com  S W O T Strength  : Broadband service space Weakness : Poor marketing  Opportunity : VSAT-based Internet services  Threat  : Increased competition