NEW DELHI: China’s Huawei is staring at as much as a 40% fall in its India revenue in 2018, hit by a slump in demand for its equipment and services owing to a rapid consolidation in the telecom market, which has forced the company to stop assembly of products at its Chennai plant.The company, which competes with the likes of Europebased Ericsson and Nokia besides China’s ZTE in the India market, has now resorted to imports to meet demand in a market where the number of telecom service providers has shrunk to just four major ones — Bharti Airtel , Reliance Jio Infocomm, Vodafone-Idea Cellular and state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam — from 8-9 even a year back.“Most of the equipment that was assembled here at SKD (semi-knocked down) and CKD (completely knocked down) level has now been stopped and shifted to the FTW zone near Mumbai. There’s no consistent demand for the products, and growth too has slowed down,” a person privy to the matter told ET. Free trade and warehousing (FTW), or trading zone, in Mumbai is where the imported products are stored before dispatching to clients.Huawei’s India revenue is likely to come down to roughly $700-800 million (Rs 4,740-5,415 crore) this year, the person said. The company, which follows calendar year for accounting in India, posted around $1.2 billion in revenue in 2017. Its devices business contributed around $250 million and enterprise business $30-40 million, with the rest from the telecom business. Huawei didn’t respond to an email seeking comment until press time Thursday.The company provides 4G LTE telecom gear to Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular in a few circles. It is likely to retain 3-4 telecom circles after the completion of the Idea Cellular-Vodafone India merger, the person said.It has been working with contract manufacturer Flex for both telecom equipment and handset manufacturing in India. Handset manufacturing, however, had been expanded with a new line for assembly of printed circuit boards for smartphones.The Shenzhen-based company’s managed services business, which counted Telenor and Vodafone as its clients, has also been hurt severely with its contribution becoming almost negligible now to the overall revenue. This follows the exit of Telenor India — Airtel bought the company — and the soon-tobe-completed merger between Vodafone India and Idea.The company is also finding it tough to grow its enterprise business in India, with no new major customer additions lately, a second person said. The segment provides enterprise networking products, including routers and switches to various industries. Flex, Vodafone India and Airtel didn’t respond to ET’s queries on their business with Huawei.ET previously reported that Huawei had cut its direct workforce in India by a third amid the ongoing consolidation in the telecom industry. Employees were asked to leave on the basis of performance, network shutdowns and declining telco business.The first person said Huawei had been laying off operational staff, mostly from third-party players, in a phased manner.Huawei isn’t the only vendor hit by the recent market developments. Bigger rival Ericsson, too, had reduced its India headcount in the last one year or so across functions. Huawei’s smartphone business though has shown signs of growth after years of struggling.