These growth figures were lower than the net profit of 24 per cent, posted in April-June 2009, in comparison to the same quarter in 2008.

Reports say that four operators, including Etisalat, are poised to enter the already crowded Indian market, in 2009.

Tata DoCoMo, a joint venture of  India’s Tata Teleservices Ltd. and Japan’s largest wireless operator NTT DoCoMo Inc, that was launched in India in June 2009, has already stolen a march over Bharti Airtel by signing up more subscribers in the third quarter.

Tata DoCoMo’s plan to charge per second for calls, unlike other operators who charge per minute, has enabled it to garner more subscribers.

Meanwhile, Vodafone’s market share has grown to 17.7 per cent at the end of August 2009 from 17.3 percent during the same period, in 2008.

During the same period, Airtel’s market share fell from 24.5 per cent to 23.6 percent. Reliance, which also cut down its prices, increased its market share from 17.8 per cent to 18.4 per cent over the past one year.

Akhil Gupta, deputy chief executive officer of parent Bharti Enterprises Pvt., is reported to have said that Bharti Airtel is looking at emerging markets and plans to expand its non-mobile businesses, such as data and direct-to-home broadcasting.

The net profit of Bharti Airtel, the biggest telecom operator in India in terms of market share, dropped by 7.8% in the second quarter of FY 2009-2010 to Rs 2,321 crore from Rs 2,517 crore, on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis.

During the period, the total revenues declined by 0.97% to Rs 9,845 crore – down from Rs 9,941.6 crore.

Both the revenues and profits of Bharti Airtel in Q2 2009 were below expectations. A poll conducted by CNBC-TV18 had shown that the company’s net profits would be Rs 2,401.2 crore and total revenues would amount to 10,218.4 crore.

Bharti Airtel, based in New Delhi, said in a statement that while its EBIDTA (earning before interest, depreciation, tax and amortisation) margin was 42.1%, the deferred tax writeback stood at Rs 221.2 crore. 

The ARPU (average revenue per user) went down to Rs 252 from Rs 278, and the minutes of usage fell to 450 from 478 quarter-on-quarter.

Sunil Mittal, CMD of Bharti Airtel, however, said in a statement that the company continues to maintain its market leadership position in the mobile segment in spite of the mounting competition. Bharti Airtel’s budding DTH business is emerging to be leader in the field in many states of the country thanks to high the quality of product and service, Mittal added.

Bharti Airtel said that 12 milion-13 million customers were being added each month and that it will pursue “all available growth opportunities” and work towards creating new streams of revenue.

The company said it had 113.4 million customers as on September 30, 2009.

Bharti Airtel had, in September 2009, an ambitious plan to merge with MTN, the leading wireless service provider of South Africa.

It may be noted that NTT DoCoMo, based in Tokyo, and the biggest wireless operator in Japan, is attracting customers with pay-per-second calls. Reliance is now offering plans with call rates of 1 US cent per minute. 

According to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Vodafone’s share of wireless users in India rose to 17.7% at the end of August 2009 from 17.3% a year before, while Bharti Airtel’s share of wireless users declined to 23.6% from 24.5% in the same period.

Reliance performed well, with its market share rising from 17.8% to 18.4% in 12 months.

In  a statement, Etisalat DB Telecom, which plans to start mobile services in 15 telecom zones in India later in 2009, said that the outsourcing deal would include implementation of its end-to-end IT applications and infrastructure, managed services, and system integration.

Under the agreement on outsourcing, Etisalat DB Telecom and its subsidiary Allianz Infratec will outsource IT application systems and system integration across 15 telecoms zones in India to Tech Mahindra. The chief IT applications, according to the statement from Etisalat DB Telecom, involve Operating Support System (OSS) domain and components in Business Support System (BSS).

Etisalat DB Telecom said that the alliance with Tech Mahindra would help speed up market as well as cost efficiencies for Etisalat’s greenfield venture.

While Allianz Infratec holds licences and spectrum for the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, the rest 13 telecom zones are held through Etisalat DB Telecom.

An official of Etisalat DB Telecom told reporters that Tech Mahindra has the necessary domain and process expertise, with a proven track record as a part of Etisalat’s launch of operations in Egypt.

Etisalat DB Telecom, he added, is confident that Tech Mahindra’s “comprehensive pool of IT skills and innovative delivery models” would help Etisalat in the planned rollout of services in India and also “deliver the best services and customer experience in the market.”

In a press release, Sanjay Kalra, chief executive officer of Tech Mahindra, said that, after successfully partnering with Etisalat for the launch of its greenfield operations in Egypt, Tech Mahindra expects to expand the relationship between the two companies in India’s high-growth telecom sector.

Telecom providers in India have been outsourcing their IT infrastructure increasingly since it would allow them to be light on asset and also focus on their core competencies.

This trend of outsourcing was set in motion by a deal struck between Bharti-Airtel and IBM – the deal now having grown to worth over $2 billion. Since then, most of the telecom companies in India have resorted to outsourcing.

Wipro recently obtained a Rs 2,500-crore deal from Unitech Wireless. While Aircel Cellular awarded a deal worth $600 million to Wipro in January 2008, Idea Cellular, the company owned by the Aditya Birla group, signed a 10-year IT outsourcing deal (worth $600 million-$800 million) with IBM.

It is being expected that India will allocate spectrum for next generation wireless networks as planned earlier. Union Minister of Communications and IT A Raja has been quoted as saying that successful bidders would be allocated the spectrum by the end of January after holding an auction. It is being said that the decision is likely to affect all leading telecom operators.

The government might go ahead and charge a fee of 1-2 per cent of mobile operators’ revenue for using additional airwaves and is also likely to levy a one-time charge for spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz. India expects to earn around Rs 50 billion in revenues annually from a higher spectrum fee to be levied on mobile telecom.

Last August, the government had outlined guidelines for a global auction of radio spectrum for 3G and 4G) wireless services, from which it hoped to raise up to Rs 400 billion. By January next, the Chennai circle and India’s north eastern region will see third-generation telecom networks open up.While BSNL would roll out 3G services in these regions, the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), with operations in Delhi and Mumbai, will roll out 3G services in these two metros by December. This would make 3G available in most parts of the country, and will b followed up by launch of the services to other regions later on

The two state-owned operators have been allocated spectrum, with one block released to MTNL in the Delhi and Mumbai circles, while another block set aside for BSNL for the rest of the country. According to sources, MTNL and BSNL have both been given 2x5MHz in the 2.1GHz band.