Idea Cellular

Idea Cellular Limited
Public Limited Company
BSE: 532822
NSE: IDEA
Industry Telecom Services
Founded 1995
Headquarters Mumbai, India[1]
Key people
 Kumar Mangalam Birla
(chairman)
Products Mobile telephony, wireless broadband
Revenue ₹320 billion (US$4.8 billion) (2015)[2]
₹31.92 billion (US$470 million) (2015)
Members 160.08 million[3] (June 2015)
Parent Aditya Birla Group (49.05%)
Axiata Group Berhad (19.96%)
Providence Equity (10.6%)
Slogan An idea can change your life
Website www.ideacellular.com

Idea Cellular (commonly referred to as simply Idea, and stylised as !dea) is an Indian mobile network operator based in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Idea is a pan-India integrated GSM operator offering 2G,3G and 4G mobile services. Idea is India’s third largest mobile operator by subscriber base. Idea has 182 million subscribers as of 31 December 2015.[3]

History

During its inception in 1995, Aditya Birla Group, Tata Group and AT&T Wireless each held one-third equity in the company. Following AT&T Wireless' merger with Cingular Wireless in 2004, Cingular decided to sell its 32.9% stake in Idea. This stake was bought by the remaining two stakeholders equally.[4] Tata forayed into the cellular market with its own subsidiary, Tata Indicom, a CDMA-based mobile provider and in April 2006, Aditya Birla Group announced the acquisition of the 48.18% stake held by Tata Group at INR 40.51 a share amounting to INR 44.06 billion with 15% of the stake acquired by Aditya Birla Nuvo and the remaining by Birla TMT holdings Private Ltd. both AV Birla family owned companies. Malaysia based Axiata bought a 19.96% stake in the company in 2009.[5]

Operations

Idea competes with other major mobile operators including Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL, Reliance Communications, Aircel, Uninor and Tata DoCoMo. While Idea competed very closely with the then smaller operators like Reliance Communications, BSNL, Tata, Aircel in circa 2006-07, as of 31 Dec 2015, Idea has gone far ahead of the rest of these competitors clocking a Revenue Market Share of over 18.5% while the rest remain below 9%. Over the last 3 years, Idea has cornered an incremental Revenue Market Share of 33% giving tough competition to market leaders Airtel and Vodafone by earning 1/3rd of the incremental market - way above its fair share of the market.

On 19 May 2010, in the 3G spectrum auction Idea paid ₹ 5,768.59 crore for spectrum in 11 circles.[6] Idea launched its first 3G services in 2011. As of 31 Mar 2016, Idea Cellular offers 3G services on its own spectrum in 13 telecom service areas - the latest being Delhi (NCR) and Kolkata. Idea has now launched its own 4G LTE services in over 350 towns across 10 telecom service areas including its leadership service areas like Maharashtra, Kerala, MP&CG, AP&T, Punjab and Haryana. It now provides 4G services in the service areas of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu covering large metros and mini metros of Chennai and Bengaluru.

Idea strengthened its customer base after the launch of MNP in India. As per information available in the public domain, Idea leads the net port ins and is ahead of both Airtel and Vodafone in gaining from Mobile Number Portability.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Idea Cellular – Cell Phone Services". Retrieved 28 June 2012.
  2. ↑ "Consolidated Result". Retrieved 28 June 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Telecom Subscription data, June 2015" (PDF). TRAI. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
  4. ↑ "Cingular Allows Agreement to Sell Stake in Indian Wireless Service Provider to Expire". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 2015-06-07.
  5. ↑ "Axiata sees long-term gains from India price war". Dow Jones Newswires (Total Telecom). 14 October 2009. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  6. ↑ Pahwa, Nikhil (19 May 2010). "India’s 3G Auction Ends; Operator And Circle-Wise Results". MediaNama.

External links

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