Top Telecom companies in India

India is the most fertile ground for telecom companies and industry as India has the huge consumer base with handsome earning to use these services. From time to time among the big sharks there are many new telecom companies in India that are making space for themselves.

Indian Telecommunication industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), till May 31, 2010 there are 653.92 million telephone subscriber base and 617.53 million wireless subscriber base in India.

Burgeoning number of telecom companies in India and industry itself is attracting huge domestic as well as foreign investments. According to the estimates from the Telecom Equipment and Services Export Promotion Council the total investment will be US$ 40 billion during the current fiscal. During April-June 2010, there were mergers and acquisitions of US$ 22.73 billion. The major merger is seen between the two telecom companies in India that is the Reliance Communication Ltd with that of GTL infrastructure Ltd.

Telecom services in India were started in 1851 in Kolkatta where first operational lines were laid down by the Government. In 1883 it was merged with postal system. Then came the Indian Radio Telegraph Company (IRT) in 1923.

The whole scenario of telecom companies in India and the telecommunication industry changed in 1980s when the private sector entered into the manufacturing of telecommunication equipments. Remarkable changes has led to the formulation of the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). So from time to time many changes have been observed in the telecommunication companies in India.

At present telecommunication sector in India has two segments.

• Fixed Service Providers (FSPs)
• Cellular Services

All the basic national, international, domestic as well as international long distance services are provided by the FSP. Whereas Cellular services are further divided into two segments. These are

• Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)
• Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)

Airtel, Vodfone-Hutch, and Idea Cellular are master of GSM and Reliance and Tata Indicom has great market share in CDMA.

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Top Telecom companies in India

Bharti Airtel is the leading telecom company in India with market cap of 108066.23 crores. It has 91.1 million subscriber base in which 2.7 million has been added in 2009.

After Bharti Airtel comes the Reliance Communications that has market cap of 32683.44 crores. Total number of subscriber was 69.6 million to which 3.3 million has been added in Feb 2009 that is more than the Airtel.

List of Top Ten Telecom Companies in India

Company Name	Market Cap in Crores
Bharti Airtel	108066.23
Reliance Communications	32683.44
Idea Cellular	14368.92
Tata Communications	13181.25
Tata Teleservices	4393.06
Spice Communications	4136.13
MTNL	4044.6
GTL	2475.12
GTL Infrastructure	2210.49
OnMobile Global	1403.52