BSNL, the country?s second largest telecom operator in terms of overall subscriber base, on Friday announced it was eyeing a revenue of over Rs 1,000 crore from leasing out its towers to private operators.
The move is seen as part of the PSUs attempt to salvage its miserably floundering bottom line as BSNL declared a net profit of
Rs 574.85 crore for the financial year 2008-2009, down 81% compared to the year before. The total revenue of the company was Rs 35,811.92 crore for the same period, which is a marginal growth from the year before?s Rs 32,360 crore.
According to a statement issued by BSNL, ?The company is aggressively working towards sharing its passive as well as active infrastructure with existing and new telecom operators?. The company has an asset base of over 40,000 towers across the country.
Tower business, has emerged as a highly lucrative business for telecom operators in the country. One, for the existing operators owning substantial number of towers, it provides them with an additional revenue stream. Secondly, new operators or the ones whose footprint was restricted to certain regional pockets and are now expanding on a pan-India basis, it reduces their capex and opex apart from enabling them to expand faster.
Recently, new telecom operators such as Telenor controlled Unitech Wireless and Swan Telecom entered into tower sharing pacts with Tata Teleservices Ltd and Reliance Communications Ltd. Typically a tower requires an investment of Rs 25-30 lakh. The new operators have clearly stated that they neither have the luxury of time nor of funds to invest in the tower business when the incumbent operators are willing to lease their towers at competitive rates.
Almost all incumbent operators have hived off their tower assets into a separate entity and are leasing it out to operators. Indus Towers an independent telecom tower company with over 1 lakh towers in its asset base is the largest tower company globally. It is a JV between Vodafone-Essar, Bharti Group and Idea Cellular.
The company operates in 16 telecom circles across India. Vodafone Essar and Bharti Airtel each hold 42% stake in the company, and Idea Celluar has the remaining 16% stake. The country?s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel is planning to tap the telecom tower business in the overseas markets as well.
