T&M In India : Midway things look even keel in FY13

This fiscal had been going very well for the industry so far.Although there are no closures of major deals pertaining to LTE,or LTE Adv because of so much uncertainity around the sector,there have been small businesses in Telecom non-core area. The DGS&D business remained dominated by Tek and now some inroads being made by R&S too. This segment continued to attract the smaller indigeneous companies.Some local solutions created by a few companies are standardised by the Education sectors and that scaled this year too.

The most important business off course came from the Defense Sector.Buoyed by big Defence Budget overall (200,000 cr approx) this continued to be bullish.Here again lot of portable deals were coming from the regional field units and the Supply units.Many new products got approval and certification from the Quality organisations of Navy and army as well.

I think next three months will see the closure activity really picking the pace.Scientists in the Defense Labs are also raising the indents and taking the procurement action.This activity will lead to fair amount of supplies to various DRDO and field labs.Naturally the instruments reaching the labs will further project completion and in turn progress this.

In the major program of Telecomm R&D activity with the incumbent operator,the lab for approvals and security compliance has not been completed.Not sure if the major portion of Rs 60 cr will be spent this fiscal,eventhough lot of pre procurement activity is on.Let us hope at least few procurements of NOFN instruments will happen in FY13. Business results from Top three T&M vendors for FY13 so far has been soft and lower YOY. This is not encouraging,but I think the smaller niche players will put up better results.We keep our hopes on.Keep watching this space.