A report published by TRAI in January 2021, earlier said that the Telecom company Vi had added more subscribers to their user base but the most recent news suggests that the company has lost around 2.3 million users in their user base. Let’s look at the reasons for the changes in data.
Vodafone Idea Limited is a merged entity. It is an Indian telecommunication company with its headquarters in Mumbai and Gandhinagar. The company is the third largest mobile telecommunication network in India and is the sixth largest mobile telecommunications network in the world.
In the year 2018 Vodafone India and Idea cellular underwent a merger and the company was called as Vodafone Idea Limited. Currently, Vodafone holds a 45.1% stake in the company and Ravinder Takkar is the current CEO of the company.
In September 2020 the company had formed a new brand called as Vi. This is a combined brand of the two entities Vodafone India and Idea Cellular. The aim was to build a unified brand from two different companies.
After the merger in August 2020 Vi had lost a significant number of gross and active subscribers. Vodafone and Idea operated as two different entities until September 2020.
Vi also provides services such as IoT, Mobile payments, entertainment, and enterprise offerings. The services are accessible through both digital mediums and retail outlets across the country. Vi has a distribution reach of 1.7 million retail outlets and a broadband network of 340,000 sites.
In the mobile network services, Vi offers 2G, 4G, 4G+, VoLTE, and VoWiFi services across Pan India. Vi provides Wi-Fi and hotspot services in major cities across the country which include Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune with more than 200 locations.
According to reports in January, Vi had added a user base of around 1.7 million in January 2021 and this was the first time in the last 15 months the company has added subscribers to its user base. Also its competitors, Bharti Airtel added a user base of 5.9 million subscribers and Jio which added about 1.95 million subscribers during January 2021.
According to the report of the Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) in January 2021, Vi had an active user base of 256.3 million which is 89.63 percent of their total users.
Revised Data by TRAI
Recently the Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) released a revised telecom subscription data for January 2021. The revised Telecom subscription data showed that the company Vi had actually lost 2.3 million subscribers than gaining 1.7 million in January 2021.
The company Vodafone Idea has acknowledged earlier about its error in the numbers provided to Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) that the company had added 1.7 million subscribers in the month of January 2021.
TRAI had examined through the numbers and identified that it was a non-intentional error that was not done through a deliberate planning. TRAI confirmed that the error had taken place by mistake.
Vi had told the TRAI that it had added a user base of around 3.7 million from Uttar Pradesh west telecom circle alone. There is a total of 22 telecom circles in India and the company has reported that it lost subscribers in 18 telecom circles and gained subscribers in the rest of 4 telecom circles.
Vi had sent the correct numbers to TRAI. Vi had noted on its website saying that they had found an unintentional error on their subscriber data for January 2021 which was submitted to TRAI. They also said that they had corrected the error and had reported the revised data to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
Corrected Figures by TRAI
As per the corrected figures of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Vi had lost 2.3 million wireless users in the month of January 2021. Whereas its competitors Airtel gained 5.9 million subscribers and Reliance Jio had gained 2 million subscribers.
Reliance Jio had the highest wireless subscriber numbers with a base of 410.7 million and Airtel in the second position with a subscriber number base of 344.6 million. Vi had taken the third position with a total subscriber number of 281.9 million.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had reported that Vi had the highest upload speed in the month of February 2021. Vodafone India’s upload speed for the month of February 2021 was 7.2 Mbps which was 6.7 in January 2021.
Idea Cellular upload speed for the month of February 2021 was 6.4 Mbps which was around 6 Mpbs in January 2021. Vodafone India and Idea Cellular was also ranked as the best in the TRAI’s report for voice call quality charts of February 2021.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) considers the company as two separate entities in its portals for My Calls and MySpeed even after the merger of both Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.
FAQ
Will Idea Vodafone survive?
Rohan Oza, an american businessman and investor believes that Vodafone will survive. “It is unlikely that the company will go bust, as it is in the interest of the government to continue with three players in the market.
What is the future of Vodafone idea?
As reporyed by Goldman sachs, Vodafone Idea could potentially save ₹58 billion (5,800 crore) in cash flows annually if the AGR liability were lowered to its self-assessed value.
Is Vodafone shutting down in India?
Vodafone Idea, India’s third-largest service provider, plans to shut down its 3G network later in 2021.
Conclusion
Vi has been rolling out various strategies and campaigns to capture the market to increase its subscriber base. We will have to wait and see what is going to happen in the future regarding the increase or decrease of Vi’s subscriber base.
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Huawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, an ex-military officer. It was merely formed as a private company. The main mission of the company was to provide consulting and operations services to most of the enterprises in China and outside the country.
There are around 3 core business units in the company, Telecom Carrier Networks, Enterprise Business and Devices, and manufacturing communication devices.
Huawei is a global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. The company offers a range of products, services, and business solutions for telecom carriers, including wireless network, fixed network, cloud core network, carrier software, IT infrastructure, network energy, professional services, and network rollout services.
It also builds a digital infrastructure platform utilizing cloud computing, software-defined networking, big data, and IoT to enable the digital transformation of the government, public utilities, finance, energy, transport, and manufacturing industries. In addition, Huawei provides smartphones, tablets, wearable devices, converged home devices, and applications on these devices for consumers and businesses.
Huawei – Logo and its Meaning
Huawei Logo
In addition to Huawei’s name, its own brand uses a flower-shaped logo. This is a symbolization of the “Hua” syllable that can mean petals or can also mean a lavish and luxurious in Mandarin. So it can be concluded Huawei logo symbolizes the achievement that surge or boast.
Huawei – Founder and History
The company was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, an ex-military officer.
Founder of Huawei
It was merely formed as a private company. The main mission of the company was to provide consulting and operations services to most of the enterprises in China and outside the country. The company has around 140,000 employees working. 46% of the employees are involved in research & development.
After a few years, the company got a research centre of its own and started doing research and development. The set up got an initial breakthrough by launching its C&C08 digital telephone switch. The company got its first international project in 1997. It then started providing fixed line networks products to a company in Hong Kong.
In 1999, Huawei set up its first R&D centre in Bangalore, India. The company also entered into a 5-year contract with IBM till 2003. Huawei continued to expand into international markets. It is the first company to deliver LTE/EPC commercial network for Telia Sonera in Norway in the year 2009.
In 2013, the company opened its new office in Canada. Over the years, Huawei always focused on enhancing its mobile technology and has a number of partnerships with other companies. It also formed a joint venture, 3Com-Huawei and focused on R&D and production of the networking products.
Huawei is a collective company now and not privately owned any more. By the year 2010, 80% of the top 50 telecom companies worked with Huawei. Some prominent partners include Motorola, Vodafone, Talk Talk, T-mobile, Clear wire, Bell Canada, etc.
Huawei – Mission
Huawei’s mission is to expand the benefits of technology to everyone, everywhere. To achieve this, they’ve developed a digital inclusion strategy that focuses on three areas: technology, applications, and skills. Huawei believes that technology will make life better for every individual, home, and organization.
The research report provides deep insights into the regional market revenue, parent market trends, macro-economic indicators, and governing factors, along with market attractiveness per market segment of North America. The report provides an overview of the growth rate of the North America 5G Chipset market during the forecast period, i.e., 2020–2027 in which top key players are Broadcom, Inc., Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd, Mediatek Inc., Nokia Corporation, Xilinx, Inc.
Lawmakers passed a motion demanding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decide within 30 days whether to ban Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. from Canada’s next-generation wireless network.
The chief executive of Ericsson has come out in support of arch-rival Huawei after Sweden blocked the Chinese firm from building its 5G networks.
Huawei – Partnerships
As of the beginning of 2010, approximately 80% of the world’s top 50 telecoms companies had worked with Huawei.
When you look at the rise of the Huawei it’s clear that the success has come from adopting new business models to fit current market trends and to ensure that they remain competitive towards its competitors. The adaptation and change for its business models over the years has ensured that it remains a dark horse in the smartphone industry. Many years ago, Huawei was known for selling ‘cheap and cheerful’ products, which were renowned to not last very long.
As a company, Huawei has invested millions in R&D to help them pursue better approaches to the industry and to try and get the company renowned as one of the best. As you can see from the image below the amount of units that Huawei now sells compared to back in 2013 is a substantial improvement, which can effectively be down to several improvements it has made as a company over the period of 3 years. The willingness of adapting and changing its ideas to fit and match companies such as Apple and Samsung will be a major factor of its success.
Huawei announced worldwide revenues of $105.1 billion for 2018, with a net profit of $8.7 billion. Huawei’s Q1 2019 revenues were up 39% year-over-year, at US$26.76 billion. In 2019, Huawei reported revenue of US$122 billion.
Huawei – Investments
Huawei Technologies has made 5 investments. Their most recent investment was on Dec 19, 2019, when Lero raised €6M.
Date
Organization Name
Round
Amount
Dec 19, 2019
Lero
Venture Round
€6M
May 8, 2017
Falcon Computing Solutions
Series B
$8M
Mar 1, 2015
Che Youyuan
Angel Round
CN¥3M
Jul 21, 2014
XMOS
Series D
$26.2M
Jan 1, 2011
Teewon
Venture Round
CN¥320M
Huawei – Acquisitions
Huawei Technologies has acquired 9 organizations. Their most recent acquisition was Vocord on Jun 4, 2019.
Aquiree Name
Date
Amount
About Acquiree
Vocord
Jun 4, 2019
–
Vocord is a developer & manufacturer of intelligent video surveillance systems, biometric identification and computer vision
Vokord Telekom Zao
Jun 3, 2019
$50M
Vokord Telekom Zao manufactures radio and television broadcasting and communications equipment
Huawei’s globalization efforts were marred by issues of security concerns expressed by countries that were sceptical over its lack of transparency. The US had vehemently opposed Huawei’s growth activities in its country. To become a truly global company, Huawei had to develop its market in the US. Against the backdrop of such security concerns, the case study would analyse the growth of Huawei in its home country, China, its international growth strategies and whether the hue and cry raised by the US authorities on security concerns would really impede the growth of Huawei globally.
During the first three quarters of 2020, the Chinese telecoms and smartphone giant reported revenue of 671.3 billion yuan (about USD $100.7 billion), an increase of 9.9% year-over-year, with a profit margin of 8%. The company said those results “basically met expectations,” but it represents a huge drop from its performance during the same period last year, when Huawei reported 24.4% growth with a profit margin of 8.7%.
The company wrote that “as the world grapples with COVID-19, Huawei’s global supply chain is being put under pressure and its production and operations face significant challenges. The company continues to do its best to find solutions, survive and forge forward, and fulfil its obligations to customers and suppliers.”
Looking to the future, Huawei’s innovation will transition as we move from an Innovation 1.0 era to an Innovation 2.0 era. Huawei said that it was going to start with smartwatches, wearables, in-car head units and it’s powering the Honor Vision smart TV, although the company stuck to open source Android for its smartphones in 2020, while its wearables still use LiteOS at the time of writing.
The company says, “In Innovation 2.0, based on our vision for the intelligent world we are entering, we will aim to break the bottlenecks in theories and basic technologies that have hindered the development of ICT. In this stage, we will focus on theoretical breakthroughs and inventions, which means going from 0 to 1. “
The philosophy of Huawei’s Innovation 2.0 will bring together universities and research institutes and connect the academia with businesses, to allow all types of global scientific research resources and talent to come together in the pursuit of innovation.
To better implement Innovation 2.0, Huawei will adopt a number of approaches, including supporting the research programs of universities and research institutes, building its own labs, and investing along multiple technological paths.
Huawei – FAQs
What services Huawei provide?
Huawei Technologies designs, develops, and sells telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics.
Can Huawei phones be used in India?
Yes, Huawei phones are used in India as it was relaunched in January 2020 itself.
Can Huawei still use Google?
Despite executive comments to the contrary, Huawei says it’s still open to using Google services after being forbidden from including them on devices last year.
How does Huawei make money?
There are around 3 core business units in the company, Telecom Carrier Networks, Enterprise Business and Devices or manufacturing communication devices.
Where was Huawei banned?
The company was blacklisted in 2019 by Trump when the US alleged that it was too close to the Chinese government.
Vibhavari Madki
