Silver Lining in a Weak Economy.

We are continually hearing bad news on the economy front ( both domestic as well as global ). The 'light at the end of the tunnel' seems to be still far away atleast from the data that is being presented everyday.

However, there is some cheering news from a domestic front and this comes from the telecom industry in India. The latest TRAI figures state the following:

India added a staggering 15.41 million new mobile subscribers in January 2009, taking the country’s total number of wireless subscribers to 362.3 million, up from 233.63 million in the same month a year ago. The figure is the biggest monthly growth ever, according to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)

Reliance Communications, India’s second-largest mobile company by users, registered the highest growth rate in January at 8.1%, followed by Idea at 5.4%, Aircel at 4.3%, Vodafone and Spice Telecom at 4% each and Bharti at 3.2%.

India is adding approximate 10 million subscribers per month, as against China’s addition of 8 million subscribers monthly.

Following are the takeways :

What this means is that the telecom industry is not facing as much of a turbulence as other industries.

The innovation and investments in this sector will probably continue in the coming year.

The markets have probably punished these companies more than what is required and there may be a re-rating soon on the telecom stocks. ( this probably is wishful thinking ! ).

Investments in startups in this sector will continue because there are opportunities to tap.