The Indian mobile telephony market enjoys the status of the second largest market in the world, behind China. Although the market has been seeing tremendous action, the increased competition and higher rollout cost may finally be taking its toll on the mobile biggies of the country.

The current slowdown has apparently put a dampening spanner on the exponential growth that the mobile companies have witnessed till date.

Airtel is now the third largest single country operator in the world, but it seems the booming Indian telecom industry is also feeling the slowdown jitters.

Despite the increased number of subscribers, low tariffs and high roll out cost in rural areas has put pressure on the margins of the telcos. Bharti failed to enthuse markets with a mere one per cent rise in net profit, flat minutes of usage and a huge forex loss.

The net profit of the group was up 1.05 per cent at Rs 2046.3 crore.

July to September revenues stood at Rs 9020 crore. The minutes of usage were at 536 and forex loss was reported to be at Rs 586.2crore, up 296.08 per cent.

Akhil Gupta, Group Director of Bharti Enterprises, said, " We feel in India mobile expenses are small and necessary.  I think that they won"t be hit so easily."

Even Reliance Communication reported flat earnings. Its net profit rose a mere 1.2 per cent while minutes of usage remained steady.

However, a bigger concern for the Indian telcos could be the impact of liquidity crunch on their global acquisition plans.

“We are not going to wait back for a year for things to settle down. But yes, there may be a small change in the amount of debt we could leverage,” said Gupta.

The 3G auctions, however, may not be delayed because even as the global telcos, bearing the brunt of the global liquidity crunch, want the auction to be pushed back, Indian telcos like Bharti and Rcom are pitching for the auction, hoping that prices will remain moderate.