Indian telecom operator Capex up 20% in 2011 at $7.5 billion

By Telecom Lead Team: The telecom capital expenditure of Indian service providers
has gone up by 20 percent in 2011 at $7.5 billion from $6.24 billion in 2010.

(Please see the chart of Capex by
top 5 telecom operators in India at the end of the article)

However, telecom Capex in 2011 is
significantly lower than their capital expenditure in 2009. In 2009, telecom
operators spent $10.11 billion for adding infrastructure.

Mobile capital expenditure has gone
up to $6.02 billion in 2011 from $4.67 billion in 2010, primarily due to 3G
investments.

Bharti Airtel tops the Capex chart
in 2011 by investing $1.67 billion followed by Vodafone at $1.4 billion. In
mobile sector, Vodafone has invested $1.4 billion as compared with Airtel’s
$1.2 billion.

BSNL, the state-run telecom
behemoth, lowered its investment to $888 million in 2011 from $829 million in
2010.

Bharti Airtel increased its Capex to
$1.67 billion in 2011 from $1.55 billion in 2010.

The telecoms industry
rebounded in 2011, with service provider Capex growing robustly compared to the
same period in 2010, according to Ovum principal analyst Matt Walker.

Global telecom service provider Capex
touches $314 billion in 2011

Globally, service provider (SP) Capex and revenues grew an
estimated 12 per cent and seven per cent respectively in 2011, with Capex
reaching $314 billion and revenues $1,962 billion.

SP revenues will advance at a CAGR of 2.9 per cent over the
2010-2017 period, which is down from the historic CAGR of 6.3 per cent achieved
in 2004-2010. There is a similar slowdown with capex: capex expanded at a CAGR
of 6.5 per cent in 2004-2010, but this will likely slow to 3.1 per cent in
2010-2017.

Recently, ABI Research said that Asian telecom operator
capital expenditure is expected to grow at 5.7 percent in 2012 compared to 29.1
percent in 2011. Asian telecom capital expenditure in 2012 is forecast to
increase 5.7 percent year-on-year to $58.8 billion.

Asian Telecom operators Capex to
grow 5.7% in 2012 compared to 29% in 2011

Over 63 percent of the
CAPEX budget for 2012 will focus on the construction of radio access network
infrastructure, 8 percent on upgrades and capacity expansions to the core
network, and 29 percent on development of new technologies and new businesses,
construction of backhaul transmission facilities, etc.

In India, only 10 to
20 percent of base stations are 3G-based. Operators like Idea Cellular are
adding around 2,000 new cell sites per quarter to their networks and almost
3,000 3G base stations in base station upgrades and new cell site deployments.

editor@telecomlead.com