Telephone Subscribers (Wireless and Landline)

1. 
   Availability of close substitutes: This poses a very low threat because advantages offered by mobile phones include voice services at affordable rates, complete mobility and value added services. This list not being exhaustive clearly surpasses any other substitute.
   
2. 
   Switching Cost: As far as switching costs are concerned, they are low but lack of potential substitute dismisses the threat that could have cropped because of low switching cost.
   
3. 
   Beneficial alternative: There may be services offered on internet which cannot be availed on mobile phones but it can never replace mobile phones. Recently i-pad and palm computers have come up but they are very costly and at the same time not convenient to carry. Landlines on other hand do not offer any other service apart from voice calling which is not what generation look out for.
   

5. 
   RIVALRY:
   

This market is mostly dominated by a few large well known companies such as LG, Samsung, Nokia and Motorola, which intensifies competition. Also present in the market, however, is a second tier of small manufacturers with phones that are targeted towards niche markets or produced for specific regions. Market penetration is high and in such conditions well established mobile phone firms, such as Motorola, have responded by creating growth opportunities through a high generation of replacement handset sales.

Based on IDC India, Nokia's market share dropped significantly to 36 percent in the second quarter, from 56.8 percent in the same quarter last year and further drop to 31.5 percent in the third quarter, reflecting the growing share of Chinese and Indian vendors of low-end mobile phones.

1. 
   Number of Competitors: penetrated by large number of brands, still it poses little threat because each has their own production facilities, distribution centers and clientele base which it needs to retain by investing regularly in R&D which till now companies have been able to do so. With growing market if competitors are close competitors, they still have lot of untapped potential in terms of rural market.
   
2. 
   Industry growth: Mobile handset industry is growing very fast with giving lot of opportunities to not only existing players but also new entrants and thus this is an area of high opportunity and threat at the same time.
   

India Mobiles Phones Market value forecast(Source: Data Monitor)

3. 
   Fixed cost: the fixed cost involved in this industry is not very high but still it is high on attractive parameter because this is an advantage to all the players who have to spend high on R&D and marketing and building efficient supply chain.
   
4. 
   Differentiation: Apart from physical touch and few advantages here and there, most of the features offered by handset providers are almost similar. It makes very necessary for companies to invest a lot of time, money and resources in it to make their products stand out from other players offerings.
   
5. 
   Switching Cost: it is costing very less to customers to change their handsets. Also offerings of different players with similar features fall almost in similar price range. Thus it makes difficult for companies to retain customers who are not loyal by constantly offering new products.
   
6. 
   Competitor size: very important factor as established players who are very big in size are able to price their quality products at low price.
   
7. 
   Exit Barrier: with lot of investment made in set up, R&D and marketing, lot of things are at stake and it becomes difficult for companies to exit from the industry so easily.
   

1. 
   Rapid climb in sales.
   
2. 
   Early adopters like the product and additional consumers start buying it.
   
3. 
   New competitors enter, attracted by the opportunities.
   
4. 
   Sales rise much faster than promotional expenditures, causing a welcome decline in the promotion-sales ratio.
   

1. 
   It improves product quality and adds new product features and improved styling.
   
2. 
   It adds new models and flanker products.
   
3. 
   It enters new market segments.
   
4. 
   It increases its distribution coverage and enters new distribution channels.
   
5. 
   It shifts from product-awareness advertising to product-preference advertising.
   
6. 
   It lowers prices to attract the next layer of price-sensitive buyers.
   

1. 
   Growth story of Mobile industry in India can be summarized in following manner,
   

1. 
   Market volume: The Indian mobile phones market grew by 27.7% in 2009 to reach a volume of 117 million units.
   

1. 
   Market volume forecast: In 2014, the Indian mobile phones market is forecast to have a volume of 206.7 million units, an increase of 76.7% since 2009.
   

The Indian mobile phone market has experienced rapid, double-digit growth in recent years and although deceleration is expected towards 2014, further double-digit growth is forecast.

2. 
   Another characteristic of mature industry is entering of new competitors attracted by opportunities. As have been shown in previous point market forecast for mobile industry is very bright and in recent past many new players have emerged. Some of the emerging Indian player are Maxmobile, Karbonn, spice etc.
   

(Source: Datamonitor)

3. 
   Some of the emerging opportunities which will be leveraged and bring huge revenues to the firm are,
   

1. 
   An area of potential growth is mobile banking (m-banking). There are more than 600 million users of mobile phones in India but only 40 percent of them have bank accounts and less than 10 percent of those use even net banking. But this is an area of huge potential and will bring revolution not only in banking but also mobile industry.
   
2. 
   Smartphone sales in the country accounted for 5.2% of total handset sales in the first quarter of 2010. Gartner projects a growth of 18% in Smartphone sales by 2014. Also these smart phones or business phones have huge potential where executives and working professionals want to keep themselves online and best way to do so is through mobile. Blackberry, Nokia, and HTC are important players in this sector.
   
3. 
   3G is another big revolution bound to happen in India with its emergence 3G enabled devices will be in huge demand. This will improve video quality and internet speed. As per reports by Gartner 3G subscribers will grow manifolds within next 3 years.
   
4. 
   Lower tariff plans and value added services also contribute a lot in replacing not only landline but also forcing each member in a family to own a mobile phone for self. 24 hours connectivity is thing of the present and with mobiles penetrating in middle class households like anything, this market will grow as rural sector ia still largely untouched which has huge untapped potential.
   
5. 
   Mobile applications form yet another important promising sector. More than 1,000 developers in India create mobile apps such as games, social networking apps, and utility apps. However, these apps are not India-specific and cater to a global audience. With 3G and improved connectivity, India’s consumers will be able to take advantage of the home grown mobile apps.
   

4. 
   The strategies adopted by firms in growth phase have been mentioned above and on close observation it can be seen that similar strategies are being adopted by players in the mobile industry,
   

1. 
   Recently it has been observed that all players, big or small are introducing products with features as innovative as they can to attract customers who want product differentiation. Example is mobile phone for elders with enlarged keys so that they do not have any problem visually locating keys. Another example is of dual sim phones.
   
2. 
   Not only new features are being added but also companies are coming up with new models as fast as they can. These phones range from slider to flap to classic phones offering variety at reasonable price range.
   
3. 
   Also it is observed that the advertisements of mobile phones earlier used to be more of introducing their products. Recently trends have changed. Advertisements now focus more on features that are being offered by the companies to lure the customers.
   
4. 
   If prices of the products are talked about, then clearly there is a kind of price war in this industry. Phones have come down in the buying range with amazing features and looks. Blackberry phones are now available in the range of
   

With a large percentage of its population being young, India is expected to top the world's youth mobile market by 2011. For the techno savvy youth, a phone should combine cool looks with utility. Considering the various factors driving the growth of the mobile market in India, the young, dynamic, and developing mobile market will offer great opportunities and challenges for local as well as international players. The recent enormous growth of the industry has attracted many players. Currently, there are 88 companies in India which are manufacturing mobile handsets. Some of the main companies are Airfone, Beetel, Maxx, Lava, Olive, Acer, CAPLIGHT, Airnet, etc. This is supporting the increased teledensity in India. International studies have proven that with every 1 percent increase of teledensity, there is an increase of 3 percent in the GDP of that country. Thus, this booming mobile industry is now playing an active part to make India a strong economy of the world.

(n.d.). Retrieved march 2, 2011, from http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1412313