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The mobile telephony sector has witnessed massive change, such as exponential growth in data in mobile and arrival of new technologies. Thus, in order to keep pace, the tower industry in India requires a huge investment of INR 20,000 crores.
Apart from the need for constant expansion in 4G mobile services, the industry needs at least 100,000 towers in the near future, as it makes a stride towards new technologies including 5G, artificial intelligence, and more.
At present, in India, the subscriber base stands at around 1.1 billion and the industry has about 471,000 towers with 18.5 lakh BTSs installed on them.
Although the cautious estimate states that the industry needs about 100,000 towers, the actual need is still much higher. The cost of setting up of a tower costs roughly about INR 20 lakhs.
The entry of Reliance Jio, with its attractive offers, caused a flutter in the mobile and related industries. This affected the tower industry as well. The telecom market headed towards consolidation and tenancy ratio dwindled significantly. This resulted in the tower industry consolidation.
In April 2018, Bharti Infratel-Indus Towers announced their merger. US tower firm ATC has taken over the tower business of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular separately. BSNL is another major operator with many towers and is planning to divests its tower assets. In the mobile service providers’ sector, the industry has three players – Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, Reliance Jio and a PSU BSNL/MTNL.
While the mobile sector is consolidating, data traffic and volume is growing manifold. Mobile data consumption in India is projected to multiply four fold in the next five years through 2022, as per a Crisil Research report.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
