Top Telecommunication Companies in India
Several domestic companies control a large portion of the market share for mobile and fixed-line segments account for three-fourths of telecom subscribers in India. These companies and their main services are:
- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. – wireline, mobile, Internet broadband, and carrier services, operating nationwide except New Delhi and Mumbai; known as BSNL
- Bharti Airtel – 2G, 3G, and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed-line services, high speed DSL broadband, and enterprise services
- Vodafone India (subsidiary of British Vodafone Group Plc.) – postpaid and prepaid mobile services and 3G and mobile Internet
- Reliance Communications – 3G, wireless and wireline Internet, television services, mobile handsets, and global calling services. Owns some of the largest optical cable systems in the world. It is not be confused with Reliance Jio, a separate company
- Idea Cellular – prepaid and postpaid mobile services including 2G, 3G, and roaming services in all telecom circles
- Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.–fixed line and broadband services; only present in Mumbai and Delhi, the two largest metros in India; this company is known as MTNL.
On the other hand, foreign companies also play an important role in the Indian telecommunications market. These include:
- Alcatel-Lucent (France) – headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, this company focuses in fixed and CDMA wireless lines, and a market leader in ultra broadband technology
- AT&T Inc. (Texas) – known for their Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) IP-based network, they have locations at Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and New Delhi.
- Cisco Systems Inc. (California) – with seven offices in India, Cisco works on R&D, services and customer support, and business models for emerging markets.
- Dasan Networks (California) – features products and services such as FTTH, Ethernet switches, IP-based terminals, wireless technology, and the Integrated Network Administrator System (INAS) element management systems (EMS).
- Ericsson (Sweden) – has a wide range of services in mobile broadband, IP and transport, television and media management, and operations and business support systems.
- Juniper Networks (California) – known for their networking products such as switches, routers, operating systems, security, management, and more.
- Qualcomm (California) – manufactures products for networking, mobile computing, and internet of everything. These include processors like Snapdragon and Gobi and software such as Vuforia and AllPlay.
In 2014, the Indian Cellular Association recorded 225 million mobile handsets imported into the country. Popular phone brands in India include Illinois-based Motorola, now part of Google, Korea’s Samsung, and Canada’s Blackberry. Besides India has several very successful indigenous handset manufactures such as Micromax, Karbonn and Xolo. Apple has finally made a mark in India with its iPhone handsets.
India is looking to increase telecom exports 25% annually until 2020. The country focuses on research and development and domestic manufacturing of telecom equipment such as optical cables, mobile headsets, and transmission and tower equipment.
