India is the new China at world's biggest wireless fair
Georgina Prodhan and Santosh Menon, Reuters
The mobile telecoms industry turned its focus on India at this year's 3GSM trade fair and away from China, after years of talking about little else but China's huge market and potential third generation licenses.
Vodafone's $11 billion deal to buy a controlling stake in India's fourth-biggest mobile phone firm, Hutchison Essar, announced on the eve of fair, set the agenda as those participants who had not already done so woke up to India's potential.
With 150 million subscribers but market penetration of still only 15 per cent, India is already the world's fourth-biggest mobile market behind China, the United States and Russia.
It is also the fastest-growing major market and is expected to overtake Russia this year. At its current growth rate, there will be half a billion mobile subscribers in India by 2010.
Mobile group Orange was one of Vodafone's rivals that looked on with some envy at 3GSM in Barcelona this week, with Chief Executive Sanjiv Ahuja saying he could follow Vodafone's lead.
Meanwhile, Indian carriers such as top mobile operator Bharti Airtel said they were keen to expand abroad. Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal told Reuters in an interview the company was in "hot pursuit" of overseas telecoms acquisitions.
There was little noise at the fair, on the other hand, about China, which in past events was often likened to a hare against India's tortoise. Top Chinese players such as China Mobile and China Unicom were nowhere to be seen.
Western telecoms equipment makers, who had talked in past years about the opportunities to be opened up by China's awarding of third-generation licences, appeared to have grown tired of the subject.
"I've given up trying to predict when the licenses will be awarded," Qualcomm chief executive officer Paul Jacobs said in an interview at 3GSM. "It heats up; then it cools off."
A couple of tens of thousands of subscribers are currently taking part in trials in China using the home-grown TD-SCDMA third-generation standard, which was accepted as an international 3G standard as long ago as 2000.
The world has been waiting since then for the Chinese government to award licences so that the construction of commercial networks can start. For several years now, the awards have been seen as imminent.
Vodafone's $11 billion deal to buy a controlling stake in India's fourth-biggest mobile phone firm, Hutchison Essar, announced on the eve of fair, set the agenda as those participants who had not already done so woke up to India's potential.
With 150 million subscribers but market penetration of still only 15 per cent, India is already the world's fourth-biggest mobile market behind China, the United States and Russia.
It is also the fastest-growing major market and is expected to overtake Russia this year. At its current growth rate, there will be half a billion mobile subscribers in India by 2010.
Mobile group Orange was one of Vodafone's rivals that looked on with some envy at 3GSM in Barcelona this week, with Chief Executive Sanjiv Ahuja saying he could follow Vodafone's lead.
Meanwhile, Indian carriers such as top mobile operator Bharti Airtel said they were keen to expand abroad. Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal told Reuters in an interview the company was in "hot pursuit" of overseas telecoms acquisitions.
There was little noise at the fair, on the other hand, about China, which in past events was often likened to a hare against India's tortoise. Top Chinese players such as China Mobile and China Unicom were nowhere to be seen.
Western telecoms equipment makers, who had talked in past years about the opportunities to be opened up by China's awarding of third-generation licences, appeared to have grown tired of the subject.
"I've given up trying to predict when the licenses will be awarded," Qualcomm chief executive officer Paul Jacobs said in an interview at 3GSM. "It heats up; then it cools off."
A couple of tens of thousands of subscribers are currently taking part in trials in China using the home-grown TD-SCDMA third-generation standard, which was accepted as an international 3G standard as long ago as 2000.
The world has been waiting since then for the Chinese government to award licences so that the construction of commercial networks can start. For several years now, the awards have been seen as imminent.