Telecom Industry caters to various segments of society; companies from emerging markets are well equipped than their western MNC

Political:
• Governments in emerging markets understand the far reaching benefits from a thriving communications sector both as a job creator as well as an enabler for other industries such as IT & ITES. Low cost and universal access to communications will go a long way in improving the labor productivity of emerging markets. This has led to increased government activity in this sector: a) De-regulate b) Increase competition c) Incentivize rural connectivity. Therefore Telecom industry in emerging markets find a ‘willing’ partner in their respective governments which puts them on a strong footing as far as political will is concerned. This phase for emerging markets could be considered similar to the 90s and early 2000s for western countries where government interest led to de-regulation and rapid development. Therefore, while MNCs in western countries have already reaped the benefits of government interest, players in the developing countries are just starting to do so indicate good growth in the near future.

Economic:
• The last decade has been a tremendous growth phase for emerging markets which GDPs growing at a scorching pace. In principle this has had two impacts on the economic pyramid 1) Increase disposable incomes 2) Fatten the middle class. Together this has led to an increased demand for communication services across the board, be it data, video or basic voice as is evident from the net subscriber additions of wireless players across emerging markets. Fact: India added 113.2 million subscribers in 2008, the largest globally.
• The enormous growth potential of the Telecom sector is evident that even with the increased subscriber additions the overall tele-density in india for example is at 33% and 36% in China. Therefore a lot of growth has yet to come and globally most investors are bullish on this sector. Fact: According to CRISIL research India will attract $350 billion in investment by 2012.

Social:
• Demographics – Most of the emerging markets are characterized by a large and growing population in the 15-40 age group indicating a large captive market with increasing earning potential, disposable incomes and aspirations - Exactly the mix that any industry would want to see in its consumer base.
• Growth at the base: With the governments turning their attention to rural population and several “Base of the Pyramid” initiatives underway, rural connectivity has been incentivized. Rural families in most emerging markets are characterized by some family members working far away in cities and communication until now has been a big problem thanks to lack of investment and government apathy. However this latent demand is now being fulfilled by private players with huge success. Fact: By 2012, India is likely to have 200 million rural telecom connections at a penetration rate of 25 per cent. And according to a report jointly released by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Ernst & Young, by 2012, rural users will account for over 60 per cent of the total telecom subscriber base. source: www.ibef.org

Technology:
• Telecom players in emerging markets have the advantage of hindsight and the opportunity to pick the technologies which have already been successful in the west. This vastly improves their ROI on capital expenditure.
• Telecom players in emerging markets are not loaded with legacy technology or infrastructure which puts them at an advantage in terms of cost, technology selection and capacity addition.
• Telecom players in emerging markets have the huge advantage of scale and volume due the size of domestic markets which helps them a) keep prices low 2) Faster adoption 3) Quicker ROI

The above factors puts Telecom players in emerging economies on a strong footing on each of the following areas:
- Size of market & availability of several large sub-segments
- Growth in demand
- Technology adoption
- Public policy
- Investment

Comparison of MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, Yatra

The online travel industry in India is the biggest contributor to the B2C e-commerce industry with a market size of nearly Rs. 7000 crores in 07-08. Airticketing currently accounts for 80% of online travel transactions. The remaining is split largely between rail bookings at the IRCTC site and other services such as hotels and cars.
With the online air ticketing poised for growth, its no surprise that ClearTrip has got an additonal round of funding $18.5 million. However this rather large downpour of cash in a fairly crowded sector prompted me to do a quick comparison of the best known sites namely ClearTrip, MakeMyTrip and Yatra. I've compared the sites on very basic criteria listed below:

• User Interface design and response time
• Transactional services offered
• Informational services offered
• Mobile services offered
  
• Flight search and booking
• Hotel search and booking

The site review was done on a 256 kbps mobile data card connection on FireFox 1.5.0.12

To review the results click on the image below:
Based on these observations I'm led to believe the following:

• ClearTrip has the cleanest & fastest UI. However data is a clear question for the site. I did not find the cheapest deal here and neither a hotel. Also, as they add more features such as support for Mobile, car and bus rental etc. it will be a challenge to keep the UI clean and fast.
  
• Yatra is the most comprehensive of the three in terms of features and services, but has the slowest and heaviest UI. The landing page has over 140 links..! When switched between Flights to Hotel, the entire page reloaded, however only the left handside control was changed...! The hotel search was much faster.
  
• MakeMyTrip is somewhere in between ClearTrip and Yatra in terms of the UI and response times. However it was the most comprehensive in terms of flight ticket data. I got the cheapest deal among the three from this site. However Hotels was another story. This is the kind customer experience that drives people away. I waited for more than a minute for the hotel search to give me a result. The page loaded in all its finery and entirety only to inform me that there were no hotels found.!

I would also like to evaluate these sites on customer experience. However I think I'll leave that to folks who comment on this post...!

Finally, recently I made a day trip to Mumbai and the night before I was looking for a hotel. Tried all these three websites and got very similar results for my budget. I checked out the prices for "Hotel Metro International" on Kurla road. On these sites, a one bed executive was costing approx Rs. 3300 per night including breakfast and pickup drop from airport. However when I reached Mumbai airport I met Ram Bhai at the airport. This gentleman does on the spot hotel reservations for people. And guess what I got the same room at Metro International for Rs. 2500/- including airport pickup and breakfast...! Ram Bhai can be reached on +91 9820644538.