Responding to an analyst query on whether telecom operator Idea Cellular has seen cannibalization of voice by VoIP services, chief executive officer Himanshu Kapania said that "about 0.1-0.2%" of the company's traffic is moving on VoIP. Kapania said that even in developed markets (offering limited bundled services), only about 1.5-2.5% of traffic was on VoIP Kapania added that the company will "budget" some of the cannibalization. "Our general sense is, some cannibalization will happen and we will budget it in, but it is not something of a fearful nature that we have to worry about. What happened to SMS will not happen to voice given that it is an app-to-app call," he explained. Kapania conceded that the company was witnessing cannibalization of SMS by messaging applications. Strategy on LTE Kapania also said that the company has advanced its launch of LTE services by one year to 2016 as it felt the prices of equipment and smartphones which can support the technology have dropped. "Our big worry when we started to valuate launch of LTE in 2014 was that then the equipment prices were far in excess to the equipment prices that were available on 3G. With almost 170 operators coming on board with the technology, the equipment prices are now tending towards to 3G prices. So when we see the sum total of devices, equipment, as well as consumer acceptance we felt there is no point delaying our LTE launch to 2017 and we have preponed our launch by one year in a…
