Advent of 5G, pressure to deliver quality services to spur telecom tower growth: Indus CEO

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Bimal Dayal, CEO & MD of Indus Towers, said the introduction of 5G technology and competition amongst telecom operators to offer a high-quality network experience offers a significant growth opportunity for tower businesses.

We are witnessing the introduction of 5G globally and if you have read press releases, including one yesterday from Bharti Airtel, India is not expected to be far behind, we believe that the debates on channels, trials for use cases, debate on spectrum availability and pricing will gather steam over the next 12 months,” Dayal said during the company’s earnings call on Friday. “Dayal said during the company’s earnings call on Friday.

He referred to the demonstration by Airtel of live 5G services using the 1800 MHz band on its commercial 4G network in Hyderabad.

He added that, as the market between operators for efficiency and technology is heating up, there are plenty of new opportunities for tower companies to concentrate on. “Together with the macro tower business, new business models are hinged on fiber, small cells, data centers, WiFi, smart cities, and beyond,” he said.

I assume, keeping in mind the announcement yesterday that we would initially see the improved mobile broadband as the first thing to be rolled out, higher data speeds will be made available,” said Dayal.”

You will undoubtedly see at first that 5G will come as a clear load. The second thing that it might promote is greater densification and also drive towards indoor coverage. And I’m sure all of this will also travel on robust backbone fiber and last-mile fiber. I believe all of these effects are a form of great opportunity for businesses like ours, too, he said.

He added that mission-critical networks such as the Internet of Things, which have low latency requirements, are only a few years away.

The strong pattern of data growth in India, backed by the pandemic, is a proxy marker of tower companies’ demand and augurs well for the industry.

Data volumes increased 25-40 percent year on year, which is a rise of over 6000 petabytes, based on industry disclosures in the quarter ending September 30,” he said.”

Indus Towers, the world’s largest tower firm, which in the previous quarter merged with Bharti Infratel, posted a net profit of Rs 1360 crore, up 20.3 percent.

In the last six years, the quarterly net tower additions of 3416 towers were the highest, while the net placement additions of 4204 were the highest in the last three years. In the last four years, the quarterly turnover of 354 colocations was also the lowest.