When Saumitra Gupta joined Hutch Sri Lanka in 2022, the contours of the country’s telecom landscape were advanced, having benefitted from liberalization decades earlier, with the state monopoly ending in the early 1990s to encourage private entrants into mobile telecommunication, which improved accessibility and affordability. But there was reason to be excited about: the market offered immense growth potential.
Sri Lanka’s telco industry is one of the few enduring examples of liberalization done right. According to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka, the country with a population of nearly 22 million had 28.8 million cellular mobile subscriptions by the end of 2024. Mobile penetration stood at 131.5 connections per 100 inhabitants, while active mobile broadband users across 3G and 4G networks reached 20.6 million. Education, ridesharing and e-commerce have thrived on the back of the telco boom.
However, the gaps and underutilized potential are enormous. For instance, according to the Speedtext Global Index (https://www.speedtest.net/global-index), Sri Lanka ranks 89th globally for mobile internet speeds, with an average download speed of 35.76 Mbps and an upload speed of around 10 Mbps. For fixed broadband, Sri Lanka ranks 127th, with an average download speed of 24.97 Mbps and an upload speed of 10.98 Mbps. Slowing down Sri Lanka’s aspirations to become a digital economy.
A telecom executive with over two decades of experience across six countries, Saumitra had seen underperformance up close. Before taking the reins at Hutch Sri Lanka, he served as head of strategy and execution in Indonesia for one of Asia’s largest telecom businesses, where he helped lead large-scale digitization efforts in a vastly more complex market.
Sri Lanka, by comparison, presented a relatively developed environment. Regulation was in place, the number of operators had recently reduced from four to three, and distribution networks were robust even in rural areas. Yet beneath this order lay a digital lag. While mobile penetration was widespread, data penetration remained shallow. At that time, as much as 30% of the market lacked access to 4G infrastructure due to poor network availability or the unaffordability of compatible devices.
For Hutch, the absence of a strong local app ecosystem, homegrown digital services, and inclusive digital payment frameworks signalled a deeper issue: the country is not realising digital connectivity’s broader economic and social benefits. Telecom is now the third most essential need after food and clothing. It’s the infrastructure of the 21st century, and that is where Hutch will play.
The Giant
Hutchison Telecommunications Lanka, operating under the global umbrella of CK Hutchison Holdings, has long been present in Sri Lanka. Over the past two decades, it has held a quiet but consistent position in the market. A significant milestone came with the 2018 merger with Etisalat Lanka, which helped Hutch significantly expand its network and subscriber base. Despite its international backing and strategic footprint, Hutch remained the country’s third-largest operator. For years, the perception was that Hutch was present but not dominant.
That posture is changing.
The company has adopted a more assertive strategy, driven by clear objectives and a renewed appetite for investment. The broader vision is to enable a more inclusive digital future, where connectivity is accessible and meaningfully utilized across different geographies, income levels, and use cases.
The business case for telco infrastructure is underpinned by macroeconomic logic. A study by GSMA and the World Bank suggests that a 5% increase in digital penetration can translate into a 1% growth in GDP. While that ratio is indicative rather than prescriptive, the underlying point remains: digital connectivity is increasingly correlated with national economic performance. By focusing on underserved regions and digital inclusion, Hutch is positioning itself as a telecom operator and a catalyst for broader development outcomes.
Backing this vision is one of the world’s largest conglomerates. CK Hutchison Holdings, headquartered in Hong Kong, has over $60 billion in annual revenues. Its telecom footprint spans Europe, Australia, and Asia, with market-leading operations in Italy, the UK, and Hong Kong. The group also controls major infrastructure, ports, and retail businesses across the globe. It sees Hutch’s Sri Lanka potential as an untapped extension of this global strength. “Sri Lanka has not yet seen the full force of Hutchison’s capability,” Saumitra says. “We intend to change that.”
Part of this push involves leveraging group synergies that have already yielded results elsewhere. For example, in Indonesia, IOH (Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison) has partnered with Google and Nvidia to develop one of Asia’s largest AI learning platforms, featuring native-language GenAI systems and large language models.
Such ambitions require sustained investment. Despite pandemic-era losses and economic volatility, Hutch has remained committed to Sri Lanka, even increasing investment during the country’s worst crisis years. The telco is one of the top ten foreign direct investors in Sri Lanka, a distinction acknowledged by the Board of Investment. “We had every reason to pull back,” Saumitra says, “but we didn’t. That’s the difference.”
What distinguishes Hutch’s position is resilience and a shift in mindset from survival to scale. The company has made substantial network investments in hard-to-reach areas, particularly in the Central and Eastern Provinces, where it now offers some of the strongest coverage available. These investments are viewed not as burdens, but as strategic assets. As the company puts it: “Our strength lies in the regions that have long been underserved.”
Goodwill
Hutch’s attempt to close the gap between Sri Lanka’s two leading telecom operators is rooted in infrastructure, capital, and positioning. The company is banking on three forms of advantage: brand trust, pricing discipline, and regulatory relevance. These advantages are already embedded in how Hutch operates and will serve as foundations for its next growth phase.
Trust and reliability have been the most cited attributes in market surveys of Hutch customers. While coverage comparisons sometimes favour competitors, customer retention and satisfaction figures have consistently painted a different picture. Hutch users tend to view the brand as dependable and service-oriented, an operator that delivers consistently, even if not always prominently. That kind of operational goodwill carries meaningful value in an industry often marked by customer churn and billing disputes.
The second pillar lies in the structure of Hutch’s services. While much of the company’s existing infrastructure remains under-leveraged, its potential is clear. Hutch already owns and operates international gateways, maintains its strong telco infrastructure and runs a world-class data centre in the country. Many are unaware of the network strength, partly due to weak historical marketing. These physical and digital assets will soon deliver a cost advantage, allowing Hutch to scale efficiently and price its services with discipline.
For Hutch, affordability has never meant underinvestment.
The company’s approach has been to keep input costs lean and pass savings on to customers, allowing it to offer value without compromising reliability. This strategy is better suited to the economics of Sri Lanka, particularly at a time when consumer purchasing power remains under strain and digital usage is rising among lower-income segments.
The third advantage, which is less commercial and more structural, is Hutch’s role as a counterweight to market concentration. If left unchecked, dominant players could create a de facto monopoly in digital infrastructure, raising costs, stifling competition, and exposing the country to systemic risk from relying too heavily on a single player in a sector critical to national development. Telecom infrastructure cannot be a monopoly. No single operator can meet the future digital needs of a country on its own.”
Conviction
A strong second player is not a luxury but a necessity. Without genuine competitive pressure, service quality will stagnate, innovation will slow, and pricing may drift upward. Therefore, Hutch’s continued presence, investment, and ambition serve its shareholders and the broader market.
The technological roadmap reflects this conviction. Over the next few years, Hutch’s strategy is not built around buzzwords but specific, locally relevant deployments that align with national priorities. Artificial Intelligence, cloud infrastructure, and sovereign data solutions form the core of this agenda.
The primary goal of the telco rollout is to establish a transformative digital infrastructure that supports future-ready applications.
Hutch recognizes the strategic importance of revolutionizing industries and strengthening digital ecosystems.
A digital hub is also under development. This platform would unify access to entertainment, payments, government services, and digital commerce, allowing users to stream movies, pay utility bills, shop online, or access support services through a single, integrated interface. Saumitra sees this as essential infrastructure. “Today, access is fragmented,” he says. “You can’t stream global content, payment systems don’t always work, and basic services aren’t interoperable. We’re trying to fix that.”
A central feature of this vision is the company’s plan to open up its infrastructure via an API gateway. This would allow third-party developers, banks, logistics platforms, and e-commerce ventures to plug into Hutch’s systems and deliver services to users over a unified digital layer. “It’s about interoperability,” Saumitra says. “If someone wants to launch a service, they shouldn’t have to build everything from scratch. They should be able to connect to us and scale.”
Springboard
This platformisation of Hutch, moving from a telecom provider to a digital enabler, echoes a broader trend across emerging markets. Operators are no longer just carriers of voice or data but facilitators of a wider digital economy. For Hutch, this is inevitable. It is not just a telco anymore. It is evolving into a techco, a digital techco.
However, none of this will have much impact without the regulatory flexibility to enable choice. Mobile Number Portability (MNP), expected to be implemented later this year, is a key enabler. In its absence, consumers remain locked into their operators, unwilling or unable to switch providers due to banking, e-commerce, and identity systems being linked to their mobile numbers. MNP changes that. It allows users to retain their number while switching operators. It creates real consumer agency and forces telecom companies to compete on price, service quality, and innovation rather than customer lock-in.
Globally, regulators have responded to telco concerns about infrastructure investment under MNP regimes by introducing cost recovery models and compliance standards. Sri Lanka can adopt similar best practices. What matters, he says, is that operators are incentivized to improve rather than protected from competition.
Sri Lanka’s telecom sector is at an inflexion point. The foundations, like coverage, spectrum, and institutional regulation, are mainly in place. What remains is execution: deploying inclusive services, driving innovation through partnerships, and scaling digital adoption beyond urban enclaves. Hutch’s plan is not to outspend the competition but to build a modular, future-proofed digital backbone with sufficient openness to allow others to build on top of it for a comprehensive digital ecosystem.
Ambition
The constraints facing Sri Lanka’s telecom sector are not technological but economic. Despite inflationary shocks, currency devaluation, and supply chain disruptions over the past three years, mobile tariffs have remained among the lowest globally. While the price of bread, electricity, and fuel surged, telecom bills flatlined or fell. A growing asymmetry exists between largely dollar-denominated costs and revenues collected in a weakened local currency. “This isn’t just a Hutch problem,” he says. “It’s an industry-wide distortion.”
The implications are visible in degraded service delivery. Consumers complain of poor speeds and network congestion, but the economics are clear: operators cannot invest at scale if unit revenues do not cover expanding costs. The issue is structural. Infrastructure, especially spectrum, towers, and transmission gear, must be paid for in foreign currency. When the rupee falls, margins evaporate. Yet tariffs, set by market forces and consumer pressure, remain compressed.
One way forward is collaboration.
This leads to a third challenge: the absence of a local digital ecosystem. Most Sri Lankan users rely on imported applications and services poorly localized, data-intensive, or unsupported by the country’s payment infrastructure. “Where are the Sri Lankan apps?” Saumitra asks. “Where are the local content platforms, the farmer tools, the student services, the SME support apps?” He believes operators have a role in enabling such development by offering domestic entrepreneurs APIs, cloud hosting, and seed-stage support.
Still, the most significant barrier to digital inclusion may not be infrastructure but access. Around 30% of the population remains offline because they lack 4G devices or digital services, which remain prohibitively complex or expensive. That’s a higher exclusion rate than in many comparable markets. The solution extends coverage and broadens relevance, making digital services affordable, practical, and intuitive for first-time users.
Globally, infrastructure sharing is standard practice. It lowers per-user costs, accelerates rural rollouts, and supports environmental sustainability by reducing energy use. In a country like Sri Lanka, where every dollar of import expenditure carries a macroeconomic burden, avoiding redundancy is not just operationally competent but fiscally responsible. Operators should co-develop future investments wherever possible, a position that reflects Hutch’s belief in a competitive but collaborative market.
To that end, Hutch is launching a programme called “Sri Lankan Ambition,” aimed at university students and early-stage developers. The idea is simple: offer funding and technical support to help young innovators develop locally relevant applications and bring those to market via Hutch’s platforms. This is not philanthropy but market development. “The country needs horizontal growth,” he says. “Not just bigger companies, but more companies with choice to customers.”
Regulatory support is also beginning to tilt in favour of healthy competition environment. Mobile Number Portability (MNP), scheduled for rollout this year, will allow users to retain their phone numbers when switching providers, removing one of the most considerable frictions in consumer choice. “A number is a national asset,” Saumitra says. “You pay for it. You should have the freedom to move with it.” While MNP may shift subscriber dynamics, its value lies in compelling operators to improve quality and responsiveness. “We’ll all have to raise our game.”
Beyond commercial objectives, Hutch is aligning its operations with CK Hutchison’s global sustainability targets, including net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. In Sri Lanka, this has translated into the solarisation of network sites, carbon tracking of marketing campaigns, and infrastructure design geared toward energy efficiency. These efforts are not always visible but are foundational to how the company builds and maintains its assets. It is also monitoring carbon outputs using AI-driven tools, enabling more precise and proactive environmental management. Staff-led initiatives—such as tree planting, mangrove restoration, and beach cleanups—reflect an internal culture aligned with environmental goals. Hutch’s e-waste collection programme, run in partnership with Ceylon E-Waste, incentivises the safe disposal of discarded mobile devices. Together, these actions represent a comprehensive effort to reduce the telco’s environmental footprint while setting operational standards for a greener future.
Hutch sees community investment as a core responsibility. Its CSR efforts focus on improving access to education and digital tools, especially in rural areas. Hutch, in partnership with the Sri Lanka Air Force and the Ministry of Education, has launched two new projects to provide e-bicycles to schoolchildren and rural families. The initiative aims to ease the daily travel struggles faced by these communities by offering a greener, more reliable way to get around.Through its “Future Connect” programme with public and private universities, Hutch also offers career guidance and digital skills training to students. These efforts are not charity—they are strategic interventions designed to broaden opportunity and build a more digitally literate, connected generation.
The overall growth indicators are showing noticeable changes. While Sri Lanka’s data market grew marginally last year due to migration and the consolidation of multi-SIM users, Hutch successfully expanded its user base by a reasonable margin. It also improved significantly in brand consideration and market share . Hutch has also pioneered innovations like eSIMs, QR-code-based digital onboarding, and child-safe internet services, products it introduced with customer convenience in mind.
The Chief Executive of Hutch Sri Lanka is careful not to overstate the company’s trajectory. He avoids the language of aggression or disruption, preferring to describe Hutch as “forward-looking” and “committed.” The transformation, he insists, is not about overtaking rivals but about building relevance. “We’re not here to create noise,” he says. “We’re here to build what matters.” For now, that means quietly expanding national infrastructure, pushing new technologies, and preparing the application environment that connects rural Sri Lanka in particular to an inclusive digital economy.