The Story of the Cellular Phone Brand Orange

Mobile Mania Contd...

The probable long-term players could be Bharti Enterprises, BPL, Hutchison Whampoa, Reliance and the Tata-Birla-AT&T combine. MTNL could also be a significant player with its launch of mobile services under the brand name Dolphin in Delhi and Mumbai. Analysts felt that with 1.58 million subscribers (as compared to 26 million fixed lines), and less than 0.4% of the world's 400 million mobile users, there should not be a scramble for the market. "The entire mobile business in India has been notionally valued by investment bankers at $ 4.5 billion (INR 22,500 crore) which is nowhere near the valuation of say, the country's software business.

So why this madness?" asked one. Mobile operators hoped that India would follow the rest of the world in opting for more cellular phones. The consistently falling call rates and a number of new services that mobile operators were offering was expected to drive the boom in the market.

The impact of some of these developments was already being felt. The mobile market was expected to grow at a phenomenal 66% in 2000 and add one million new subscribers to touch 2.7 million subscribers by April 2001. In 2000, the mobile market was worth Rs. 2000 crore in terms of revenue and was expected to cross Rs. 5,000 crore by 2002. The mobile market was also expected to become huge in the near future and waiting to carve out their share of this pie would be a handful of players.

Once the foreign companies were allowed to hold 100% stakes in Indian mobile firms, foreign majors with deep pockets would expand the market much faster. The major players in the cellular phone market, other than Hutchison Max Telecom, were Bharti Telecom, Essar Teleholdings, BPL Mobile/BPL Cellular, RPG Cellular/Cellcom, Spice Cell/Spice Communications, Fascel/Celforce and Birla Tata AT&T.

Welcome Orange

In early 2000, a bright orange bloom over cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata was giving sleepless nights to Sunil Mittal (Mittal)⁸ and Rajeev Chandrashekhar (Chandrasekhar)⁹.

The Story of the Cellular Phone Brand Orange - Next Page >>>

8] Chairman, Bharti Telecom.

9] Chairman and CEO, BPL Mobile Communications.

Case Details

Case Code : BSTR002
Themes: Brand Management
Case Length : 8 Pages
Period : 1995-2001
Organization : Hutchison Telecom, BPL
Pub Date : 2001
Teaching Note : Available
Countries : India
Industry : Telecommunications

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