Tuesday, June 16, 2009

India

Here are some articles that relate to UT in India I quickly pulled from a couple of websites:

No cuts in India - Company’s India MD, Vijay Yadav confirmed to TelecomTiger that India operations will remain largely unaffected by the move. “ We continue to report strong growth in the broadband and IPTV market in India. It means that the India operations will remain unaffected by the announced job cuts,” said the MD.

UTStarcom’s India headcount totals around 125-150. Though the employee strength might appear to be small, the company is consistently consolidating its position in the broadband market including IPTV infrastructure in India with regular contracts from state-run PSUs BSNL and MTNL.

http://www.telecomtiger.com/fullstory.aspx?storyid=6353

BSNL Extension Contract - "In the first phase, UTStarcom deployed 1.3mn broadband subscriber lines for BSNL with an additional 1.1mn broadband subscriber lines during the second phase. With the new expansion phase, UTStarcom will deploy its B1000 multi-service access node (MSAN) solution throughout India to add approximately 475,000 ports of capacity to BSNL's existing broadband network."

http://www.iptv-news.com/iptv_news/may_09_2/bsnl_extends_utstarcom_contract

Aksh-BSNL - Commenting on the launch, Dr. K.S. Choudhari, MD, Aksh Optifibre Ltd, said, “This launch is a testament of the spread and growing popularity of icontrol IPTV in India. Aksh believes in expanding mediums of entertainment at competitive pricing through this breakthrough technology of IPTV service. This expansion of the service to multiple cities highlights the growing popularity of the real power of interactivity. With the launch in Agra we have reached a footprint of 15 cities in the country already and plan to increase it to 22 in the next 30 days”

BSNL - Chennai - BSNL’s Chennai circle subsidiary, Chennai Telephones and Smart Digivsion Pvt. Ltd. announced the launch of Myway BSNL IPTV services.

http://www.telecomtiger.com/fullstory.aspx?storyid=5962 (UT mentioned in the Q1 call about BSNL deployment in Chennai).

Bharti-Airtel -While one agrees that broadband sector is still at an infancy stage in India and the market dynamics will certainly change post introduction of wireless broadband services in the country, Bharti Airtel is expected to continue to be among the top performers in the field complimented by its position as an integrated telecom player which will help it to offer wireline as well as wireless broadband services.

http://www.telecomtiger.com/fullstory.aspx?pagenum=2&storyid=6378 (Bharti Airtel is the leader in mobile in India...UT could introduce their mobile iptv solutions in India in the future)

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During the Initiatives call, Blackmore commented on the bookings outside China and that it was above expectations (whatever that means). UTs strategic position in India has generated some costly sales in the past (low margins/losses). The iptv subscriber numbers have been very low. However, broadband seems to show a lot of promise while iptv deployments are now taking place. The lowered cost base in 2010 plus the early cycle nature of UTs products in high growth tech space/countries should get them to profitability. The company credibility is non-existant and shareholder confidence is very low. The company has to prove they can execute and deliver bookings but the ramp in core bookings in India (low compared to all the other revenues before) should start making a bigger impact and lead to some enthusiasm in the coming months and set the stage for 2010.

Its easy to get discouraged with the disappointments but the main question is can UT ramp the core revenues in light of the targetted cost base in 2010. The company obviously had to cut costs in light of the slow ramp of "core products", divestitures/wind-downs of handsets (mostly), and almost complete loss of PAS. Some people may not understand why I and other shareholders are positive (or even say I'm always positive) but after years of worrying about the loss of PAS, the high expenses, and slow ramp of "core" products (or maybe unrealistic growth expectations), its really good to know the company can realistically "outperform" going forward and the focus would be on the core products.