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The brainchild of Sam Pitroda, the PCO concept is an
indigenous way of spreading access to telephone in a country that has over a
billion people and a tele-density of less than three.
The PCO Growth
According to NTP ’94 there would be one PCO per 500 persons
in urban areas, and for every one lakh lines released per month, 5 percent would
be for PCO booths. This is clearly a DoT-driven market. The total PCOs installed
in the country till January end this year were 6,13,071, including the 5,394
national highway phones.
The market for the PCO vendors is estimated to be around Rs
110 crore. And it is concentrated in Andhra Pradesh (AP), Gujarat, Karnataka,
Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and the four metros. In fact, only AP and
Maharashtra have touched the 50,000-mark along with MTNL Mumbai that has over
64,000 PCOs. While in the local PCOs category, Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai take
the lead, in the STD category Maharashtra, Gujarat, and AP are in the forefront.
Though these are the potential telecom units, but future opportunity would be in
Madhya Pradesh, UP, Rajasthan, Bihar, and the Northeast.
The Vendors
There are an estimated 120 companies manufacturing PCO
instruments. But in effect there are about 20 main manufactures. There are many
local manufacturers who have obtained a TEC approval, but may be restricted to a
single area or two. Interestingly, this market has only Indian manufacturers
because the people manning the booths are not very literate technologically.
Also the Indians are still not in a habit of the card culture. Little wonder we
do not have payphone market like else where. Further more, many of the people
who go to the PCOs need assistance in terms of dialing numbers.
Linkwell Telesystem (Visiontek range of products) and
Computer Peripheral Devices (CPD range of products) dominate the market with
close to 75 percent market share. Linkwell is the leader in AP and CPD in
Karnataka. While Metascan and Digicontrols are the other major brands behind
these two, Goldtron is very strong in the North, TeleI is strong in Calcutta,
Microcontrol is a competition in Mumbai and Pune.
The prices of a PCO today are anywhere between Rs 10,000 and Rs 18,000
depending on features. The local coin payphone market is witnessing a rise. MTNL
Mumbai has taken the lead and there are some cases in AP too. But it would need
a uniform policy to push its cause. There is also a good case for exports for
the PCO instrument vendors, if initiatives are taken with African and the SAARC
countries.
| Status of PCOs (till 31 Jan 2000) | ||||
| State/City | Local | STD | Highway | Total PCOs in the Unit |
| Mumbai | 48,030 | 16,392 | 118 | 64,540 |
| Maharashtra | 20,670 | 31,630 | 832 | 53,132 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 21,890 | 27,800 | 233 | 49,923 |
| Gujarat | 13,248 | 29,358 | 800 | 43,406 |
| Delhi | 28,416 | 11,357 | 0 | 39,773 |
| Karnataka | 8,995 | 25,820 | 201 | 35,016 |
| Uttar Pradesh(E) | 8,019 | 26,436 | 390 | 34,845 |
| Tamil Nadu | 21,425 | 11,087 | 182 | 32,694 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 12,498 | 18,240 | 290 | 31,028 |
| Chennai | 23,086 | 7,414 | 0 | 30,500 |
| Punjab | 7,880 | 20,759 | 117 | 28,756 |
| Kerala | 9,648 | 16,751 | 414 | 26,813 |
of PCOs (till 31 Jan 2000)