Rank 71 - Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd

Gilat
Satellite Networks, which opened its liaison office in India only in 1998-99,
performed extremely well in the captive and shared hub segments. It was #1
player in the TDMA area.

In the last fiscal, the company installed 1,802 VSATs of
which 1,662 were TDMA and 140 were DAMA. In terms of turnover, the company did
Rs 52.13 crore and was second only to Hughes Network Systems (HNS). This is a
difference of Rs 7.22 crore as HNS netted a turnover of Rs 59.35 core last
fiscal.

The company bagged 902 VSATs in the shared hub segment while
on the captive network the number stood at 900. Out of this, 500 were supplied
to National Stock Exchange (NSE) and 400 collectively to National Informatics
Centre (NIC) and NICSI, another arm of NIC. Opening a liaison office was to
facilitate providing better support to the existing customers of AT&T Tridom.
The customers were Punwire, ITI, and Comsat Max, and GE Spacenet accounts of HCL
Comnet, NIC, and NSE. In the last fiscal, it tried to strengthen its operation
in India by aggressively pushing the product.

In the coming fiscal, with the Government paying more attention on village
telephony, Gilat plans to encash on this by aggressively marketing its VSATs for
rural telephony. Other focus areas would be Internet multicasting and distance
education. The company is also looking to market "Gilat-to-Home"
products in India that will bring Internet directly to home. This solution is
developed in conjunction with Microsoft and Echostar.