Overview:

Counterpoint Technology Market Research estimates that wireline broadband subscriber will grow at a CAGR of 9.2 % from 17.9 Million in 2017 to 2022. India is still a quite small market in terms of size when you look from networking equipment perspective, though there is a high growth opportunity.

• In Q4 2017- Jio signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition of specified assets of Reliance Communications Limited and its affiliates. Consequent to the agreement, Jio will also acquire assets under four categories: Towers, Optic Fiber Cable Network, Spectrum and Media Convergence Nodes from Reliance Communications Limited and its affiliates. These assets are strategic in nature and are expected to contribute significantly to the large-scale roll-out of wireless and Fiber to Home(FTTH) and Enterprise services by Jio.

• Vodafone, another one of the major operator in India is crawling its way up to grab a share of wireline broadband subscribers and in order to do so, Vodafone already acquired YOU Broadband in 3Q2017, which has operations across 16 cities in India.

• The trend of bundling various services are already progressing as Vodafone India CEO Sunil Sood said “We want to be an enterprise solutions powerhouse, and not just sell SIM cards. We have entered the home broadband space via acquisition of YOU Broadband, we can now sell fixed line and content along with broadband to SMEs and start-ups as well”

We estimate that FTTH will be driven by Reliance Jio going forward leading to consolidation in the DSL space as many small regional players are still active. YOU/Vodafone Broadband is another player to watch out for along with Airtel as they have started gaining momentum recently by aggressively promoting their plans.