M&As Consolidate India's Telco Market

The rest of the nation's service providers battle over their region's portion of the remaining 35% of the market. Growth projections available in EY's report and elsewhere predict continued, increasing adoption of broadband -- for everything from video to 4K to education to telehealth and communications -- across cities, residential customers, government agencies, enterprises and SMBs.

Domestic operators led India's M&As, accounting for 92% of telcos' deal value and 58% of the deal count, reported the Economic Times. This consolidation will continue, ultimately resulting in three or four strong national contenders, EY predicts.

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Added Yashojit Mitra, partner in the General Corporate Practice at the Mumbai Office of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, in a blog: "The proposed mergers of Idea-Vodafone, and Airtel-Telenor in a fragmented telecom sector is an attempt to counter the threat of a relatively new player, Reliance Jio, which is disrupting the sector with its low prices and offers, and aggressive signing of subscribers.

"The proposed purchase of certain assets of Reliance Communication by Reliance Jio will further propel Jio’s standing in the industry, making it a greater threat to the other telecom companies," he added. "Post these consolidations in the telecom space, there will only be around four to five key players remaining, and the smaller players will be eliminated."

International players also eye Indian providers with interest, especially with a new government telecom policy on the horizon. This program is scheduled to address areas such as licensing frameworks, research and development, innovation, data security, privacy and India's 5G roadmap, EY said. Consolidation also will phase out the tariff wars that have plagued many providers' bottom lines and allow post-acquisition companies to save on duplicative processes (such as accounting and human resources) and leverage synergies (such as infrastructure investments, fiber and field technicians), the consultancy said.

"[All these factors] triggered the long-awaited consolidation in the telecom sector," EY told Economic Times, "precipitating merger announcements by some players and exits/buyouts by others."

India's government is expected to soon approve the merger between Idea Cellular and Vodafone India Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan, told the India Times in late March. The number two and three carriers in India are merging their operations in the country to create a business that will be co-owned by UK's Vodafone Group and India's diversified Aditya Birla Group, the article said.

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— Alison Diana, Editor, Broadband World News. Follow us on Twitter @BroadbandWN or @alisoncdiana.