Idea- Vodafone Merger: Consolidation in the Indian Telecom Sector

The Indian telecom sector was classified into three segments – wireless, wireline, and internet services , with the sector comprising services offered by both public and private sector entities. The top public sector entities were Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) , while the top entity in the private sector was Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel).

In India, wireless communication through pagers was launched in the year 1995. This provided the much needed mobility in communication processes. Motorola was the leading player in pager services with 80% of the market share. The business of pager services reached two million subscribers in the year 1998 (later reduced to 500,000 subscribers by the year 2002).