Competitive Landscape of Mobile Telecommunications Tower Companies in India

With the entry of 3G and WiMAX players, the Indian mobile subscriber base is expected to reach 1110 million by the end of 2015. To meet mobile infrastructure demand, India will require approximately 350,000 to 400,000 mobile telecommunications towers in the next 7 to 8 years. Presently only 40% of mobile telecommunications towers are shared in India. The high growth of subscribers and initial cost of mobile telecommunications towers and license conditions will force mobile network operators to share infrastructure with other mobile network operators, specifically with new operators. The Indian government has allowed sharing of passive and active components of mobile telecommunication infrastructure. With the changing demand of the telecommunications infrastructure, many new telecommunications tower business entities and companies and mobile telecommunications tower business models are being explored. In this paper, the author presents the landscape of the mobile telecommunications tower industry in India, which consists of four types of companies and trends with respect to the strategies of telecommunication tower companies, especially tenancy ratio. Emerging features of the mobile telecommunication towers industry in India are also presented.