Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have enough capacity to absorb over 113.9 million Vodafone Idea subscribers who are on 4G if Vodafone Idea has to shut operations.
With Canada, Australia extending restrictions, admission seekers are deferring their studies or looking elsewhere.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is in the process of issuing a show-cause notice to Vodafone Idea (Vi) for delaying the payment of licence fee. Companies pay 8 per cent of their adjusted gross revenue as licence fee. This also includes a universal service obligation levy. The fee is collected from each of the 22 telecom circles in the country on a quarterly basis.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost 12.4 million subscribers in the first quarter of FY22, the most since the fourth quarter of FY20, as the second wave of Covid hurt its operational and financial performance. Vi had managed to trim subscriber losses in the third and fourth quarters of FY21. However, it lost 12.4 million subscribers and its customer base shrunk to 255.4 million in the first quarter of FY22. Sequential fall in 4G users was modest, indicating that most of the loss was in the low-margin 2G segment.
The government will have to make substantial payments, as well as forego revenues in FY'23, if it wants to work on the survival of Vodafone Idea because it will have to extend the same incentives to the entire telecom sector. According to estimates, the industry has to spend around Rs 21,000-Rs 25,000 crore for spectrum which it bought on a deferred payment basis. Vodafone Idea has asked for a moratorium for another year (FY23). If granted, the government will have foregone the instalment payout for a third year in a row as it has already provided a moratorium for two years, giving telcos Rs 42,000 crore worth of relief.
Byju's has quietly moved into other global markets such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand. It recently launched operations in Latin America.
The Tata group's tryst with mobile services, with either CDMA or GSM technology, did not really fly, forcing it to close operations and write off losses. Now the group is back in the big game, this time straddling the telecom equipment, network and technology space in India as well as the global market. To this end, it is leveraging the opportunities that flow from 5G technology through open radio access network, or O-RAN. Recently, the Tata Sons' subsidiary Panatone Finvest acquired 43.3 per cent in Bengaluru-based telecom equipment manufacturer Tejas Network for Rs 1,850 crore and announced it would buy another 26 per cent of the voting capital through an open offer.
Minimum one-way air fares between Delhi and London are priced upwards of Rs one lakh in August due to limited number of seats, data collected by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) shows. The United Kingdom has included India in the amber list and the change came into effect from Sunday. With this, passengers from India needn't undergo institutional quarantine and can self-isolate at home for 10 days.
Discussion has started between blank check companies in the US and Indian PEs on possible deals in certain key sectors.
The government should convert Vodafone Idea's (Vi) debt into equity to avoid a duopoly in the telecom sector, Deutsche Bank Research said in its report on Monday. This, the bank suggested, would be the only viable solution in the backdrop of the Supreme Court dismissing the telecom company's application for recomputation of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance group has struck acquisition deals worth $4.2 billion with a dozen companies in just two years to expand its retail business. The latest purchase was of a majority stake in Justdial for Rs 3,497 crore. Elaborating on his acquisition strategy a few weeks ago during the AGM, Ambani stated that one of the key planks would be to acquire businesses that enhanced Reliance's offerings and experiences to customers and that they would be both physical and digital.
Tata Sons has started the process of due diligence of state-owned Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express. Sources said the group has appointed Bain and Company and Seabury Group for this purpose. Once complete, a financial bid will be submitted and a deal to take over the airline is likely to fructify by end of this year or even earlier, people involved in the process said. Simultaneously, the group has brought in veterans in the aviation business from Delta and United Airlines to prepare a plan for post-merger integration of Air India with its existing airline ventures. Tata Sons operates Vistara - a 51:49 percent joint venture with Singapore Airlines and Air Asia India, in which Tatas hold 83.67 per cent stakes.
Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) CEO Ravinder Takkar did some plain speaking. In an analyst call after its quarterly results recently, Takkar said that the main stumbling block to raising fresh capital from investors is "pricing" - telecom tariffs, in other words. Nine months ago, the telecom company's board had cleared a proposal for raising Rs 25,000 crore from investors, after the promoters made it clear that they were not ready to pump in more money. But potential investors are concerned that without clarity on tariff hikes (there have been none for more than 18 months) they might just lose their money. The lack of visibility on raising tariffs has also impelled VIL to request the Department of Telecom (DoT) for a fresh reprieve by extending the two-year moratorium on paying its spectrum instalment of Rs 8,200 crore for another year till FY23.
Serbia has become one of the transit points for Indians heading to Canada and the US. Canada requires passengers from India to take an RT-PCR test from a third country, while the US wants them to spend 14 days outside of India. As a result, many students are taking the Serbia route to Canada, and the US.
Vodafone-Idea (Vi) has said the key hurdle it faces in raising fresh funding, despite interest from investors, is the 'pricing situation' which is also the reason why it has asked the Department of Telecommunica-tions (DoT) for another extension of the moratorium on payment of spectrum instalment by one more year. Responding to a question during an analysts' call on Friday after its quarterly results on the reason for the delay in fund-raising nine months after it was announced, CEO & MD Ravinder Takkar said: "We are in discussions with investors. There is continued interest in investing in the telecom sector in the country. "The biggest hurdle is that the overall industry is under stress because of the pricing situation." He said that once tariffs go up, it will create a significant amount of confidence.
Apple Inc's leading contract manufacturer, Taiwanese giant Wistron, has exceeded its investment obligation in India in just eight months, although the government's production-linked investment (PLI) scheme allowed it to complete the investment in four years. Between August 2020 and end March 2021, Wistron made an investment of Rs 1255 crore - 25 per cent more than the total investment it had committed to the government. Under the PLI scheme for mobile devices, the government had stipulated that each of the five participating global companies needed to invest Rs 250 crore every year for the first four years, totalling Rs 1,000 crore.
As and when Jet Airways applies for slots, these would be allocated among all airlines according to guidelines, without any claim of historicity in favour of any airline. Slots would be given to Jet only from the available remaining pool.
At least 95 per cent of Jet Airways employees will have to give their consent to the Kalrock-Jalan consortium's proposal or lose benefits offered to them under the revival plan. Voting on the consortium's offer for employees and workmen began on Monday and will go on till August 4. The National Company Law Tribunal cleared the consortium proposal to revive the airline on June 22. While Jet Airways had admitted claims of around Rs 15,000 crore, the consortium has offered to settle claims of Rs 475 crore of financial and non financial creditors.
Chinese telecom gear giant Huawei Technologies has sought permission for access to the government's 'Trusted Telecom Portal' which went live on June 15 so that it can share details about the telecom products which telecom service providers have agreed to buy from it. The move is significant as sources close to the development say that, according to Chinese telecom companies' interpretation, the new National Security Directive on the telecom sector does not in any way prohibit them from participating in the process of selling telecom equipment of any kind to private telcos. The firm is waiting for a response from the government. It declined to comment.
The Kalrock-Jalan consortium - new owners of Jet Airways - has got an assurance from around 30 airports that if the airline restarts operations, 170 pairs of slots can be made available. However, whether those slots will be according to the airline's demand will depend on the order of the insolvency court, which is slated to come next week. Sources said the new management feels it is extremely important that some of those slots are restored or else its business plan of operating Jet as a premium carrier will not be viable.
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