The CEO of Sistema Shyam TeleServices (i.e. MTS/Sistema India) is keen to remain in the Indian telecom market despite operational losses over last 4 years. The Co’s endurance stems from its Russian experience where MTS took ~14 years for cash payback of investments.
Currently, Sistema operates on CDMA Platform in India. This is in contrast with Russian operations which are on the GSM network. As per the Company, the Supreme Court's mandate to re-auction spectrum could be an opportunity for Sistema-India to switch from CDMA to GSM. It emphasized that there are various options to switch between technologies as the core and transportation networks are technology agnostic.
No Financial Crunch
Sistema MTS India has been able to access fresh loans. Current debt is at ~US$1.65bn of of which ~US$1.3bn stands guaranteed by its parent company.
Compared to Indian Telecom Operators, Sistema believes that there is a pan-India market for data services once network speeds improve. Non-voice services currently account for nearly 35% of Sistema MTS India's revenues of which ~22% is from EVDO based Data Services.
on GSM font, there will be more competition, as Telenor looking for pan India spectrum, Videocon looking for key circles, STel may also look for 3 circles where they have 3G spectrum.
Now on CDMA platform they invested a lot and grabbed some good no. of customer base who bought MTS branded devices - phones, dongles, router.
Recent report by ET says MTS stopped investing on voice services, so are they looking for GSM for voice and CDMA for data ?
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