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T E L E C O M The Dolphin Show Despite the launch glitches, MTNL's cut-rate cellular service is making rivals jittery.
The service was scheduled for launch on January 31, 2001, but was delayed for a variety of reasons. For one, the network (set up by Lucent) was being beta tested and had not been handed over to MTNL. (A Lucent spokesperson disagrees, saying that the network had indeed been handed over). Says MTNL's Managing Director, Narinder Sharma: ''There may be some problems on the quality front in some parts of the city... there is a certain amount of network optimisation which keeps happening over a period.'' That's music to the ears of competitors, who are hoping that quality will be the Achilles' Heel of MTNL's low-cost strategy (Rs 2.70 a minute for outgoing calls and Rs 1.50 a minute for incoming calls). While rival Airtel has already cut its tariff from an average of Rs 4 a minute for outgoing and incoming calls, Chief Executive Sanjay Kapoor says the market will expand as a result of MTNL's entry. ''Markets all over the world have expanded whenever a new entrant has come with low prices as the key ingredient of its strategy,'' he says. Sharma is talking about breaking even in the first year of operation itself. Against the projected break-even subscription of 50,000-60,000, MTNL-which currently has 10,000 subscribers-hopes to garner as much as 100,000 in the first phase in Delhi. End of this month, the Dolphin show goes to Mumbai. Rivals beware. -Suveen K. Sinha A U T O M O T I V E Sonata seeks to create another market segment. Will that be much of a market?
There was an air of smugness among Hyundai Motor India's top brass as they announced mid-February that the company would be creating a new segment in India's car market by launching a premium luxury car, Sonata, in July this year. The price tag? Rs 14-16 lakh, depending on the tariffs on components and CKD kits in the forthcoming auto policy. While Hyundai's Santro was one of the key drivers of the B segment boom of the past two years, and the Accent in creating the low-end of the C segment, Sonata will be the first offering in the D segment. Powered by a 1997-cc petrol engine that delivers a maximum 133 BHP at 6,000 RPM, Sonata will narrow the gap between Mercedes-Benz E Class (about Rs 30 lakh) and the diesel variant of Mitsubishi Lancer (Rs 10.5 lakh). General Motors India and Ford India are also tipped to enter the D segment soon with the Vectra and the Focus, respectively, but not everyone is betting on this market. Says Maruti Udyog CEO, Jagdish Khattar: "We won't go into the segment for some time as it is marked by small volumes and high import content." While B.V.R. Subbu, Director (Marketing & Sales), Hyundai admits that Sonata's local content may initially be lower than the 70 per cent that both the Santro and the Accent came with, industry estimates put the new car's break-even point at 2,500 units a year, at a price of Rs 14 lakh. However, with the cost of bringing the Sonata to India pegged at $20 million-including upgrading the assembly lines-rivals would be watching its impact on Hyundai's bottomline, which showed a profit of Rs 67.61 crore last year. "I don't know what the impact may be. It will depend on sales," says Hyundai's CEO, Y.S. Kim, who plans to sell only about 2,100 Sonatas in the first year of its launch. But like Maruti, Hyundai's bread-and-butter will come from the smaller cars. -Suveen K. Sinha B I O T E C
H A few Indian companies are making their first tentative bets on biotech.
At home, a clutch of companies-including Dr Reddy's Lab, Ranbaxy, and Satyam Computer Systems-seem to agree. The Hyderabad-based DRL has launched a new company called Zenovus Biotech to work on the niche area of monoclonal antibodies, which are components of the immune system capable of recognising and binding to a specific antigen (foreign body). While Ranbaxy is putting the final touches on its biotech plans, Satyam Computers has tied up with the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) to identify opportunities for infotech-enabled services in bioinfomatics and related fields. ''The genome research has changed the very approach to drug discovery,'' says Satish Reddy, coo, DRL. The tack that the two companies are taking is different. DRL wants to use biotech to come up with drugs that fight antigens with greater precision and effectiveness. Satyam, in contrast, wants to club its expertise in infotech with CCMB's knowledge in biotech to develop bioinformatics-oriented solutions for customers worldwide. Explains Ram Mynampati, COO, Satyam: ''We'll offer services in areas covering infotech manpower services, database value-added services, and pharma-cum-database value-added services.'' But there may be a hitch. Bioinformaticians are in short supply. "That's affecting outfits like ours,'' says CCMB Director, Lalji Singh. Besides, there is a chance that the biotech rush may go the dotcom way. -E. Kumar Sharma P H A R M A Reports indicate that desi Viagra clones are a smashing hit. Several years ago, a condom company came up with an innovative tagline to save buyers the embarrassment of having to say the six-letter word aloud. Marketers of Viagra clones have needed to do no such pussy-footing. For one, sildenafil citrate-the formulation used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED)-is flying off the shelves without any promotion. For another, buyers aren't asking for the drug by its name (there are at least four brands already in the Indian market). Rather, they are asking for the new drug that 'boosts health'. And instead of handing out vitamin tablets, most chemists are actually brown-bagging the hot new manly hope. Says Ranbaxy Laboratories' S.D. Kaul: ''The feedback has been very, very positive.'' Seconds Sun Pharmaceuticals' Veep (Marketing), Shyamal Ghosh: ''The response from doctors has been very enthusiastic.'' Indeed, 97 per cent of sales in the estimated Rs 50-crore market is believed to be over-the-counter even though it's a prescription drug; a sign that a lot of buyers are mistaking sildenafil citrate for an aphrodisiac, which it is not. Doctors say that's one painful mistake which is best avoided. -Suveen K. Sinha
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The
ring was audible and so was the sigh of relief from the executives of
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) when Union Communications Minister,
Ram Vilas Paswan, managed to connect, on the second attempt, the inaugural
call of Dolphin, MTNL's cellular service that kicked off in Delhi on
February 7, 2001.
Dotcom's
loss could well be biotech's gain. Last year, even as American investors
fled new economy stocks, a whole lot of others held on to biotech, earning
themselves a 23 per cent return on their 52-week investment. The trigger,
of course, was the groundbreaking mapping of human genome. Many analysts
now believe that all those years of lab work might actually turn into
profitable products in the near future.