3G turf yet to give returns for Indian operators

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Better and user-friendly pricing models might help operators gain more ground on 3G.

When we take a glance of today’s 3G scenario in India, as of today, Bharti Airtel has about seven million 3G subscribers. But experts believe that out of this, only 30-35 per cent of these are active on 3G services, i.e, they use it regularly and pay for it.

There is certainly an issue towards low usage of 3G, which have not seen huge growth in uptake of the services. Not too long back, an international market research company, TeleGeography, pegged the number of 3G subscribers in India at 12.2 million. The number is still a little under two per cent of the active mobile subscriber base of 626 million.

A story of Great Expectations.

On the other hand, telecom experts do believe that there is huge potential in 3G and that the adoption of 3G has been picking up gradually, especially as consumers get to experience it and understand the impact it can have on their lifestyles on a longer term and external factors like availability of smartphones (3G enabled) and related 3G applications will push 3G growth to the next level exponentially.

It may be recalled that the auction for 3G spectrum saw an outflow of Rs 67,719 crore from the telecom industry. And analysts close to the telecom domain had expected 3G revenues to start kicking in from the second quarter of this financial year.

The reason for the lukewarm uptake, many say, is the availability of hugely high price of 3G services as of today. On an average and in today’s scenario, an average 3G service costs at least three times more than 2G GPRS (general packet radio service) services. Moving forward, operators need to work towards devising better and economical pricing models that are good enough to entice the mass market within the country.