Rank 29: Hutchison Fascel: Master of One

In the fiscal 2001-02, Hutchison Fascel had a subscriber base of 299,443,
growing at a rate of 28 percent when compared to 167,997 in the fiscal 2000-01.
Its revenue grew by 77.23 percent to reach a turnover of Rs 307.3 crore from Rs
173.39 crore in FY 2000-01. Fascel now holds a stupendous 64 percent of the
market share in the Gujarat circle.

This cellular operator which offers its services under the brand name
Celforce has a network which cuts across 24 out of 25 districts in Gujarat. Over
150 towns and more than 2,400 villages are connected on the network stretching
from Ambaji in North Gujarat, Umargaon in South, across the entire golden
corridor and from Dwarka in West to Dahod in East. In the FY 2001-02, the
company undertook a number of tariff revisions, apart from slashing
international calling rates by 21.7 percent, and 20 percent in domestic long
distance calling rates. Fascel also unveiled a range of value-added services
including mobile chat, voice-assisted messaging, national roaming for pre-paid
users. It has also tied up with TeliVoice, a global voice-messaging company.
Fascel’s OFC project initiated in 2001 to cater to bandwidth requirements had
also progressed rapidly and now stretches along the golden corridor, covers
Rajkot, Gandhidham and is operational till Porbandar. Hutchison Fascel plans to
increase this backbone to 2,000 km and will form the foundation for its future
broadband network.

Hutchison Fascel TURNOVER FACTSHEET CEO : Sandip Das Address : 6th Floor, Sakar-II, Ellisbridge, Ahmedabad 380 006 Tel  : 079-6577228 Fax: : 079-6578796 Web site : www.fascel.com  S W O T Strength  : Coverage and subscriber base Weakness : Inability to sustain growth in subscriber base Opportunity : Leverage the OFC network Threat  : The new entity called Idea Cellular