The Hindu Business Line : Private players gain major share of PCO market

New Delhi April 22 CDMA-based telecom operators Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices have wrested control over the lucrative PCO market in the country from the State owned telecom companies Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. The two companies now account for over 50 per cent market share in the PCO segment leaving behind the PSUs with just 41 per cent share of the 5.3 million booths in the country.

In December 2004, BSNL and MTNL had 90 per cent market share with over 20 lakh booths. By December 2005, the market share of the two telecom PSUs dipped to 69 per cent.

Aas per the numbers for December 2006, recently released by the telecom regulator, both BSNL and MTNL have had negative growth by losing 11,000 PCO booths during the three-month period October-December 2006. The two companies had closed 10,000 PCOs in the previous quarter.

During the same period Reliance added 1.2 lakh PCOs and Tata Teleservices added 81,239 booths.

Over the last one-year BSNL's PCO numbers have remained static at around the 20 lakh booths even as the overall market size has almost doubled. At the same time Reliance has moved from 5.3 lakh booths in December 2005 to 14.5 lakh PCOs by December 2006. Tatas also increased from 3.2 lakh booths to 11.7 lakh in one-year time.

While BSNL is still the single largest PCO operator, going by the current growth rates Reliance Communication is expected to overtake the PSU in the next six months. Market watchers pointed out that the CDMA operators were deploying wireless PCO booths, which made it faster and easier to roll out compared to the fixed line based public telephones set up by BSNL and MTNL. Private operators were also offering better terms to booth owners. In a bid to counter the private operators strategies, the state-owned company had recently revamped its PCO business. BSNL had decreased the tariffs for local calls made from PCO even as the company matched it by lowering the pulse rate significantly. The company had also increased the commission for PCO booth owners up to 10 per cent

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