What next for Bharti Airtel in the wake of scuppered MTN deal?

Sunil Bharti Mittal: looking to new opportunities in the wake of scuppered MTN deal?

Will they? Won't they? Will they? Won't they?

No. Not now - and maybe not ever.

Of the two big telecoms M&A deals discussed by this blog over the last few months, one has definitely stalled, seemingly not to be revived again this year.

We've been here before. Giant Indian cellco Bharti Airtel and South Africa's multinational mobile group MTN failed to come together last year. Now, after months of discussions and a repeatedly extended deadline for those talks, the two firms have once again failed to find a way to combine their assets into one giant emerging markets player which would have been the third largest telecoms company in the world, according to the Indian MNO's statement about the scrapped merger plans.

Bharti Airtel maintains that the planned alliance "was a vision based on solid fundamentals" and that "substantial synergies could have been captured" with the proposed transaction. The Indian firm's statement indicates that much thought was given to the "the sensibilities and sensitivities of both companies and both their countries" and contends that "the proposed deal structure took into account their leadership in their respective geographies to ensure continuity of business - including listing, tax residencies, management, brand etc." With what sounds like a note of regret about a missed opportunity, the statement expresses the opinion that "the deal would have been a significant step in promoting South-South cooperation - a vision of the two countries."

So what's gone wrong this time? The Bharti Airtel statement indicates that failure to gain the approval of the South African Government is what has caused both companies to take the decision to disengage from discussion. James Middleton of Informa Telecoms & Media also describes the aborted transaction as a case of both firms failing to convince the Zuma Government, which is MTN's biggest shareholder via the Public Investment Corporation (a pension fund), of the value of the deal.

Another Informa scribe, the shadowy 'Informer', in his usual playful manner, reaches for the fairly obvious metaphor of a cancelled wedding and has some fun with it. Writing yesterday, the mystery man of Mortimer House jokes that that "the parents of the bride-to-be" were "clearly unimpressed by the quality of her suitor."

While the Indian firm expresses the hope that "the South African government will review its position in the future and allow both companies an opportunity to re-engage," it's probably legitimate to wonder if there will be the appetite to revisit this again for a third time. I'm all in favour of persistence - God loves a tryer and all that. I've also learned, though, that 'no' often means... 'no'. Happily, I've not had the chastening experience of asking several times for a lady's hand in marriage and being repeatedly spurned. My guess, though, is that I'd probably start to take the hint at the second knock-back. If Sunil Bharti Mittal and his management team feel at all like that, then this recent disappointment begs a new question: What next?

In its statement about the failed tie-up with MTN, Bharti Airtel stated that the company "will continue to explore international expansion opportunities that are consistent with its vision and bring value to its shareholders." I would expect that to be the case, having expressed the view back in February that competitive pressures on home turf might force the Indian operator to identify investment targets around the world.

As the year has unfolded since then, some of these pressures have not proven to be as strong as might have been feared. For example, one threat my February article identified was state-owned operators (i.e. BSNL and MTNL) stealing a march in the 3G space and in the WiMAX services arena. As we have seen here since, however, it now appears that the two big public sector telcos have failed to make much of this this first-mover advantage.

Other pressures do continue to exist, though, even in a massively booming market. Since that February article, India's mobile operators have added almost 100 million subscriptions. Bharti Airtel's share of the vast subscriber base, however, has slipped a little, with ground conceded to a strongly performing Reliance Communications and to smaller players whose market share has improved a bit, notably Aircel and Russian-owned MTS India.

Where, then, will the giant MNO seek new growth opportunities outside its home territory? Back in February, I aired the view that Bharti Airtel may be almost uniquely well suited to the challenges of African markets, noting that the Indian operator has to cope with the lowest tariffs in the world while sustaining growth. More than once, when reporting the rumoured sale of a set of African mobile operators, this blog has noted that those operations are rather less profitable than the parent company's properties in the Middle East. Bharti Airtel, then, might be the most obvious fit to purchase those assets. The group being referred to here is, of course, Zain.

So, could the failure to tie-up with MTN now put the Indian operator in the frame as a suitor either for Zain's African portfolio or for a stake in the entire Kuwaiti-headquartered group? Maybe. Consider this from the chuckling 'Informer':

"You shouldn’t stick around where you’re not wanted... there are, after all, plenty more fish in the sea. The Informer suggests that Bharti has a look at Zain, instead. Zain gives the impression of being a little more, how shall we say… available."

If this were to happen, I'd guess that a link-up with MTN would be permanently off the cards, due to the significant overlapping of the Zain and MTN footprints.

What next for Bharti Airtel in the wake of scuppered MTN deal?

India update: loose ends from previous entries

MTS: Russian cellco's Indian operation - world's first CDMA2000 1x Advanced deployment

The time is fast approaching when I'll want to revisit the twists and turns of the much-discussed MTN-Bharti Airtel merger. That mooted deal, though, is by no means the only interesting story on the Indian telecoms scene so in the meantime I'd like to follow up on a number of issues covered in previous articles here.

Early last month, this blog discussed the desire of Scandinavian telecoms firm Telenor firm to secure a controlling interest in the Indian mobile operator in which it is a shareholder. A stumbling block had been the concerns of the country's security agencies, worried about the Norwegian firm's links to Bangladesh and Pakistan, both neighbouring states inside which terrorist attacks on Indian targets have been planned. When DTW last picked up this story, it looked as though a solution might be on offer - in the form of the transaction being approved on the condition that none of the staff who have worked at Telenor's Pakistan operation will be employed in India. Courtesy of India's Economic Times, I learned yesterday that this proposal to allow Telenor to increase its stake in Unitech Wireless has been sent to the Indian cabinet for approval. Doubtless the Norwegian firm will be hopeful of a positive outcome.

Another recent India-focused DTW article explored how the Government's security fears may be set to affect other telecoms businesses. That piece mentioned the case of ByCell, a Russian-backed firm that has been prevented from entering the Indian mobile services market, with security concerns about the company and its shareholders being the deal-breaker.

Now, another Indian telecoms firm with links to Russia is also the subject of worries over foreign ownership rules. Sistema Shyam Teleservice (now branded MTS India), a CDMA cellco in which Russian conglomerate Sistema has a controlling stake, has been asked to seek fresh approval for its wholly-owned subsidiary Shyam Internet Services, an ISP. According to an Economic Times article yesterday, the subsidiary never secured the mandatory Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval.

The article states that the issue came to light when the cellco's ISP subsidiary, which currently offers services only in Rajasthan, sought approval from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to be a pan-India player. MTS India has reportedly told the DoT that since FIPB had previously approved Sistema's 74% stake in the company, it was therefore "assumed that this approval covered all wholly-owned subsidiaries." MTS representatives seem to be confident that this issue can be resolved quickly and without much fuss, but it's worth pointing out that this is not the first time the cellco has run into trouble over failure to obtain FIPB clearances.

Early last year, according to the Economic Times piece, Sistema grew its stake in the Indian mobile operator to 73.97% despite only having got FIPB approval for a stake of 51%. This was resolved, but perhaps the Sistema people will be hoping that these trangressions have not tried the patience of the Indian authorities too far.

On the mobile side, MTS India remains a vigorous proponent of CDMA technology as a good fit for the country. On Tuesday, the operator announced its membership of the CDMA Development Group (CDG), the international consortium of CDMA service providers, manufacturers, application developers and content providers whose roles are to ensure interoperability among systems and encourage the adoption of CDMA2000 wireless technology worldwide. The previous day, the cellco had announced its plan to adopt 1X Advanced technology to support its growth plans. An announcement about the completion and publication of specifications for CDMA2000 1x Advanced was only made last month, so MTS India's claim to be the first service provider in the world to offer this "future-ready technology" seems credible.

CDMA2000 1x Advanced is intended to enable best-in-class and simultaneous voice and high speed EV-DO data services. MTS India CEO Vsevolod Rozanov says "with a need to offer uncompromising, seamless call connectivity with fewer call drops, and data services at ever faster speeds, operators are in search of solutions that utilize limited spectrum more efficiently, to be able to support a larger subscriber-base on it. 1X Advanced is designed to meet both these needs and will help MTS to significantly increase its capacity to provide outstandingly clear voice quality to its growing subscriber base."

This operator, then, seems bullish about the prospects for its advanced services. Last month, DTW covered the apparently less successful efforts of India's two major state-owned telecoms businesses to compete in that space. That article noted that both BSNL and MTNL have registered very low subscriber numbers for their 3G offerings, failing to capitalise on the first-mover advantage they should be enjoying - India's private sector mobile operators continue to wait for oft-delayed licence auctions to take place. I am not sure to what degree high handset prices have been a barrier to consumer adoption of the state sector telcos' 3G services - in previous articles here, it has been noted that the two state-owned companies have a rather lower ARPU subscriber base than some of their private sector rivals. If the price of devices is a major stumbling block, MTNL will be hoping that its recently launched own brand 3G handset - priced at around USD 110 - will have a positive impact.

MTNL is also looking to develop its 3G play in partnership with franchisees, whose role will be to acquire, serve and retain customers and provide customer care, according to a Business Standard article of 16th July. Two interested parties have emerged - Virgin Mobile and Spice Group. The former is well known globally for its MVNOs in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, South Africa and the USA. The Virgin Mobile brand has also been present in India for a little while, with services offered via the CDMA and GSM networks of Tata Teleservices.

Whether the franchise route will turn out to be the best way forward for MTNL remains to be seen. The DTW article which covered the public sector telcos failing to sell good numbers of 3G subscriptions also mentioned the criticism BSNL has received for selecting the franchising model for its WiMAX deployment. A vocal critic was the WiMAX Forum's top representative in India, who has asked the telco to consider how much revenue it may be foregoing by employing this approach.

This criticism, then, implies that the franchisee in this arrangement can make a tidy sum. Perhaps with this in mind, and presumably encouraged by its existing arrangement with BSNL, wireless solutions provider Harris Stratex is eyeing a role in MTNL's WiMAX franchisee project, according to Thomas K. Thomas of Business Line, writing recently.

In the case of 3G mobile services, perhaps MTNL's management would be encouraged by how successful Virgin Mobile has been in the UK and be attracted to the idea of working with a company whose brand value can prove very attractive for consumers. That said, in April this blog discussed how much less successful the Virgin Mobile MVNO in South Africa has been. In terms of market maturity (measured by mobile penetration), Virgin Mobile South Africa made its debut rather later than its UK counterpart had done some years before, thereby finding itself needing to win custom away from the incumbent MNOs. I don't have figures to hand, but I daresay that here in the UK, the Virgin-branded MVNO was the first supplier of mobile services to many of the customers it signed up. In India, mobile penetration might look attractively low to Virgin Mobile, causing the group to hopeful about experiencing growth more akin to the UK scenario than the frustrating South African one. I wonder, however, how strong an affinity for the Virgin brand exists in the minds of Indian consumers. Here in the UK, the brand is associated with a plethora of other products and services and its founder, the charismatic Sir Richard Branson, is often described as one of this country's most admired citizens. Does this brand resonate much more strongly here in Britain than, say, India?

It remains to be seen whether these franchising deals or the launch of new devices will do much to improve the fortunes of India's two ailing state sector telcos. For Amit Gupta of telecoms and IT advisory firm Ovum, none of this is as important as the need to privatise both BSNL and MTNL. In a recent opinion piece, he argues that "political intervention, a bureaucratic culture and pre-liberalization mindset are the root causes for BSNL and MTNL’s poor performance". Even with control handed to new investors, argues Gupta, "the challenge to transform BSNL and MTNL from state owned sick companies into customer centric service providers will be daunting". He feels that "due to the size and complexity of these companies, it won't be possible for an outsider to manage change without the cooperation of the existing employees", which could be tricky if we believe the argument that "at the same time, investors will have to cut the flab from a bloated workforce." These concerns notwithstanding, Gupta continues, "privatization is the only economically viable option" if these companies are to be saved from "their eventual demise."

Amit Gupta argues against the value of the Indian Government merely divesting stakes in the two operators while retaining control. He feels that this is inadequate. I imagine, then, that he would warn off any potential bidders for minority stakes in either opco. One such might be the giant US telco AT&T, which is reportedly considering a bid for a chunk of BSNL.

I've written so much about India on this blog since February that I daresay other loose ends from previous entries may need tying up soon. Watch this space. The next article on India may well zero on that mega-merger whose developments have rumbled on all summer.

India update: loose ends from previous entries

Where will MNP go live in 2009? How should MNOs respond?

With Mobile Number Portability now about to hit the Indian market, the country's technology media are following the debate about how much impact this is likely to have.

Jatinder Singh, writing for Voice & Data magazine, notes that MNP has been a long time coming:

"After years of discussions and apprehensions by major telecom operators, MNP or mobile number portability, is finally going to make inroads into the Indian telecom market. [The] TRAI has approved the pan-India implementation of MNP, and [the] DoT has framed the timeline of its implementation; it is expected to hit the market by year-end."

Singh notes that MNP will be phased in piecemeal, region by region, starting with Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkatta and Chennai, with nearly 18% of the total cellular subscriber base given the option to change service providers while retaining their current mobile numbers. Singh also expresses the opinion that MNP may force operators to improve quality of service in order to avoid losing customers to rival MNOs.

So, how seriously are India's operators taking MNP in terms of threats and opportunities it might create? A range of views are reported in Jatinder Singh's article:

Kuldeep Goyal, Chairman and MD of BSNL, which currently occupies 4th place in terms of mobile market share with 11.95% of subs according to WCIS, seems upbeat about MNP, saying "It would certainly offer opportunities in the Indian telecom market. We are positive with our market share and would be eyeing more customers once things are in place."

From market-leading Bharti Airtel, Dr Jai Menon (Director, Customer Service and IT) notes that MNP has had varying levels of impact in markets worldwide. "We are ready and believe that it allows more and more customers to come to our network and enjoy the services," says Dr Menon. Also speaking for Bharti Airtel, Deputy CEO Sanjay Kapoor told the Business Standard earlier this month, that MNP "is more relevant in countries where you have long-term contracts", going on to explain that because "India is a prepaid market... number portability won’t be a game-changing opportunity for anybody." For Kapoor, the vast, price-sensitive prepaid segment is already so inclined to regular churn with "the exit and entry cost on prepaid connections... so low", that he does not believe MNP "really adds to value."

It is, perhaps, tempting to assume that a newer market entrant would be welcoming MNP much more enthusiastically, mindful of an improved opportunity to grab customers from established rivals.

Raymond Yu of telecoms think tank Ovum, writing earlier this month, however, contends that all MNOs are vulnerable to MNP-driven churn. He cites the cases of Greece and Lithuania, where the largest operators actually managed to increase their market shares immediately following the introduction of MNP. Yu also recalls the case of Hong Kong, where although all MNOs experience a large number of ports, "this is not unique to the customers of the market leaders."

In India, considerations of this kind may account for the apparently quite muted repsonse of new kid on the block Sistema Shyam Teleservices. The Voice & Data article quotes Vseovolod Rozanov, the company's CEO, as saying "it is more of an opportunity than a threat. However, looking at the experiences of global markets, the influence on change in the market share is not very dramatic." This is not to suggest, however, that Rozanov is completely disinterested in MNP. In a recent Economic Times article he is quoted as saying "number portability will... drive growth for us." The Sistema-backed operation, which has now harmonised its brand with that of the giant Russian cellco which is part of the same group, has, according to WCIS, yet to break the 1% mark in terms of market share.

The Bharti Airtel CEO's comments about market conditions in India somewhat diminishing the relevance of MNP are echoed, to a degree, by remarks made by the head of the telecoms regulatory agency in Uganda. In this case, however, market size rather than the behaviour of prepaid users is being put forward as the argument against imminent deployment of MNP.

A recent Cellular News story quotes Patrick Masambu, Executive Director of the Uganda Communications Commission, as saying that "at this stage, number portability is not something we see as a remedy in this market." Mr Masambu feels that the Ugandan market needs to grow further before the costs could be justified. He added, however though that once the country has passed the 10 million subscriber mark, then MNP could be viable. I find it a little curious that Mr Masambu chooses 10 million subs as the trigger for more actively considering MNP. If you read his comments without knowing the size of the Ugandan mobile market, you might imagine that the country has rather fewer than the 10 million subscriptions. According to WCIS, however, the country had 9.95 subs as of March this year. Hmmm...

In neighbouring Kenya, the deployment of MNP may also be some way off, if a recent article from the country's Standard newspaper is to be believed. The Standard's Robert Ndingwa notes that the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) has just three months to go before its September 2009 deadline to implement its version of number portability but states that the regulator is yet make a decision on whether to licence local number portability operators, "leaving consumers at the mercy of dominant mobile service providers." Ndingwa alleges that the CCK "prefers, instead, to hide behind its so-called principle of technology neutrality in the new market structure it introduced."

With some operators and regulators apparently lukewarm about the need for and effects of MNP, it might be worth asking whether views of this kind might mask a degree of fear about number portability. If so, Ovum's Raymond Yu dvises operators in particular not to be too worried, suggesting that each MNO must decide whether to view MNP as a threat or an opportunity and then devise an effective strategy in response.

Yu argues that "essentially, there are two ways to react to the introduction of MNP: either promote it or keep it under covers." In most cases, challenging operators would take the aggressive stance, says Yu, "whereas dominant operators are initially more reluctant to push MNP."

Yu notes that popular strategies for promoting MNP include making it a normal part of the sales process and using marketing to increase consumer awareness and perception of the facility to retain their numbers when switching providers. Strategies to defend against MNP include, according to Yu, simply not advertising it, implementing strong win-back strategies in line with porting requests and employing stronger loyalty and retention initiatives.

Let's see which of these options are chosen by MNOs in India - and in Uganda and Kenya, should MNP become a reality any time soon. According to Raymond Yu, other markets to watch for MNP deployments this year include Ecudaor, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Thailand.

Where will MNP go live in 2009? How should MNOs respond?

GSM vs. CDMA: the battle goes on?

One of the most rewarding aspects of being part of Informa Telecoms & Media's Com World Series team was having the opportunity to learn about regions which I had not previously studied or visited. Previously, while creating and hosting telecoms sector conferences for other companies, my travels had taken me to North America, Central & Eastern Europe and to Russia. My Com World Series brief took me further afield. In addition to already familiar territory, regions I covered in the Informa role included the Middle East , India/South Asia and Latin America.

In the last of these regions, my visits began at what felt like the relatively advanced stages of a protracted cellular network standard battle between the GSM and CDMA camps. A key partner in the delivery of the GSM Americas/Americas Com events in which I was involved was 3G Americas, an association founded in 2002, with a mission to unite "mobile operators and manufacturers in the Americas to provide a single voice to represent the GSM family of wireless technologies – GSM, GPRS, EDGE, and UMTS/HSDPA."

The 3G Americas President, Chris Pearson and the association's Latin America Director Erasmo Rojas led an Executive Briefing session at each of the Americas Com conferences delivered under my watch. They did a great job of rounding up CxO-level participants from key South American MNOs. I don't think they would mind me saying that on both occassions Chris's opening presentation really banged the drum for the GSM family in terms of describing advantages over rival standards.

I cannot be sure to what extent 3G Americas has been instrumental to the Western Hemisphere's migration away from CDMA technology in favour of the GSM flavour, but that migration has been significant. The graphic below, taken from the 3G Americas website (and drawn from Informa Telecoms & Media WCIS figures), shows how GSM has prevailed in the opening years of this new century:

It is worth pointing out that the non-GSM subscriptions are now, for the most part, in North America. In the USA and Canada, it is estimated that there currently exist around 153 million CDMA connections. GSM subscriptions across these two markets number around 104 million and W-CDMA lines have just reached the 20 million mark.

Looking further south, Informa Telecoms & Media estimated that in the 'Americas' region (all markets in the Western Hemisphere except the USA and Canada), there were almost 400 million GSM subscriptions and just 40.6 million CDMA subscriptions by the end of December 2008. Of these CDMA lines, the two most significant chunks were the 11.7 million connections in Brazil and the 15.8 million in Venezuela. In the case of Brazil, a single operator, Vivo, accounts for all the CDMA subscriptions.

When I looked up these figures today, I was a little surprised that Vivo, a joint Telefónica-Portugal Telecom operation, still has so many subscribers on its CDMA network. The last time I was looking closely at developments at Vivo, which was back in about May 2008, I was under the impression the company planned to shift all of its CDMA mobile subscribers to its newer GSM network. That process is certainly happening - but at nothing like the speed I imagined.

In Venezuela, the vast majority of the CDMA connections are owned by renationalised Movilnet, which has an estimated 11.3 million subscribers - vs. the 4.5 million CDMA connections of rival Movistar. Unlike Movilnet, the Telefónica-backed Venezuelan MNO has been steadily shifting users to a GSM network since March 2006. However, the state-owned cellco is also, finally, making the move to GSM. In December last year, Global Mobile Daily reported that billing vendor Amdocs has deployed a billing solution to support Movilnet's new GSM network.

We can therefore expect continuing developments in Latin America to impact upon the next version of the above graphic. Look out for further erosion in the non-GSM networks' share of Western Hemisphere mobile subscriptions.

One might infer from all of this that CDMA is a technology in quick decline towards an inevitable demise. However, recent news items from India lead me to believe that the GSM-CDMA battle is very much a live one in that country.

Earlier this week, I spotted that Sistema Shyam TeleServices is potentially looking at more acquisitions in order to gain better access to the Indian market. The company, a joint venture between majority shareholder Sistema of Russia and India's Shyam Group, was among operators to get new licences in early 2008. The nascent cellco is aiming to offer CDMA-based mobile services across the country before the middle of 2010. A Business Line/Hindu Group article dated Jan 30th quotes Vsevolod Rozanov, President and CEO, Sistema Shyam TeleServices, who says "We are open to any opportunities for acquiring a mobile services company in India to speed up our roll out plans. However, there are not too many CDMA operators in the country who are looking to sell their business." Asked specifically about well-established CDMA MNO Reliance Communications, Rozanov said, "Yes we can look at Reliance’s business if they are willing to sell. However, I do not think that is the case." According to the article Reliance was, at some unspecified recent time "considering a merger deal with South Africa-based telecom player MTN."

When the full gravity of the global economic downturn started to become clear to us all last year, I sensed that one casualty might be the international expansion plans of Russia's leading telecoms groups. In that context, Sistema's apparent willingness to spend money on growing its Indian CDMA operation suggests to me not only confidence in the Indian market but also a belief that the CDMA standard is up to the task of supporting attractive, well-priced and future-proof services.

Another sign that CDMA is to be taken seriously in India is the recent, strongly worded response of the COAI (Cellular Operators' Association of India) to reported plans on the part of one operator to make EV-DO data cards available on the market. The COAI is a club of GSM operators, a group that must surely be frustrated by the ongoing delays in the licensing of spectrum for 3G and WiMAX services. Telecoms.com reported today that having already put the spectrum auctions off until this year, because of the government's failure to clear the relevant radio spectrum in all operating regions ('circles' in the local jargon), new delays are anticipated in the wake of proposals to double the base price of the licences.

India's GSM players, then, are clearly concerned about being outpaced by CDMA operators. An article in yesterday's Economic Times says that COAI Director General T.V. Ramachandran has written to the country's telecoms Minister to seek assurances that no private player should be allowed to launch EV-DO service without 3G being made available to all players. The article states that according to the COAI, the launch of EV-DO services would be unfair to the GSM operators as "CDMA operators have ample spectrum to offer both 2G as well as 3G services and this can result in [giving] unfair anti-competitive advantage to CDMA and tilt the playing field to the disadvantage of the private GSM operators".

I daresay Mr Ramachandran and his colleagues will make a strong and persuasive case. During my stint running the Com World Series Indian event I had the pleasure of meeting the COAI Director General several times. One memory stands out. In 2007 I was asked to have lunch with Mr Ramachandran and his guests from various Indian government agencies at the conference. One of the guests, on agreeing with a point made by the COAI head, gave me a useful piece of advice about keeping tabs on telco sector developments in India. "If you want to know," said my neighbour at the lunch table, "watch T.V." I will indeed keep an eye out for more on this story. I am interested to see if the COAI can indeed prevail in their argument that EV-DO gives CDMA operators an unfair advantage over GSM operators struggling with further delays to their own 3G plans.

All of this makes me look back and smile at a very simplistic remark made to me years ago by one of my first bosses at a telecoms sector conference company. It was one of his tasks to set me on the path of cutting through the then-forbidding tangle of telco jargon. "CDMA is dead," he told me. "You only need to worry about GSM". I don't think that can have been true then given that it's abundantly clear that it's not correct even now.

GSM vs. CDMA: the battle goes on?