The DoT or Department of Telecom has announced the pre-qualified bidders for the 3G auctions which are set to take place in India next month. 9 Companies had submitted their bid for the 3G Spectrum and all the 9 telecom companies have qualified to take part in the 3G auctions . Let’s take a look at them
Aircel Limited
Aircel was initially operating in the South region and expanded last year to get a pan india presence. Aircel has MS Dhoni as a brand ambassador.
Market Share : 6.18%
Bharti Airtel Limited
Airtel is the largest operator in India with a over 100 million customers. It has a country wide network which is 3G ready.
Market Share : 22.11 %
Etisalat DB Telecom Private Limited
Even before starting operations the company has manged to rope in Aamir Khan as Brand Ambassador
Idea Cellular Limited
IDEA has a lion’s share of the market in Northern India and expanded to other circles last year. Abhishek Bachchan is the brand ambassador for Idea
Market Share : 11.02%
Reliance Telecom Limited
The company has one of the largest CDMA networks in India and started offering GSM services since last . It reached 100 million customers recently.
Market Share : 17.63%
S Tel Private Limited
Relatively small player targeting certain markets such as Jammu & Kashmir, UP , Bihar and Orissa.
Market Share : 0.13%
Tata Teleservices Limited
Tata started mobile services under the Tata Indicom banner which is powered by CDMA . It then started offering GSM services under the Virgin Mobile brand and Tata Docomo brand
Market Share : 11.2%
Videocon Telecommunications Limited
Videocon has just launched GSM services in Chennai and Coimbatore had aims to offer services throughout the country
Vodafone Essar Limited
Originally started operations in the country in the name of Hutch and was taken over by Vodafone and Essar group to form the Vodafone Essar Group. Vodafone was in the news recently for the ZooZoo ads.
Market Share :17.25%
As you can see from the above figures the largest private players are Airtel , Vodafone , Reliance and Tata. The number of slots up for auction are 4 in some circles and only 3 in many circles . Some slots are reserved for BSNL and MTNL in all circles and are not part of the auction. The auctions are for the 2100 MHz band. The mock auctions are set to take place on April 5-6th 2010 and the real auctions will take place on April 9th. 3G Services can go operational from Sep 1 2010 for the winning bidders
Whom do you want to win the auctions and offer 3G services ? If you were to pick one provider from the above who will it be ?