Ajit Mishra, vice president, research, Religare Broking, answers your stockmarket queries.
While in all, 15 entities owe the government Rs 1.47 lakh crore -- Rs 92,642 crore in unpaid licence fee and another Rs 55,054 crore in outstanding spectrum usage charges, it is not immediately clear just how much of that has been sought by the government by midnight.
Disgraced former Australia captain Steve Smith has tied up with the local arm of Britain's Vodafone Group in an advertising campaign that leverages the nation's ball-tampering shame for marketing purposes.
Reliance Jio's decision to acquire 700 MHz in combination with the possible use of an advanced standalone (SA) 5G network could give it an edge over its rivals, according to most analysts. The dissenters argue that the stiff price tag touching Rs 40,000 crore to grab 10 MHz of spectrum in 700 to provide coverage for its SA 5G network which offers ultra-low latency (unlike non-standalone or NSA), has a long way to go in India in terms of finding use cases that can be monetised. Globally, 700 MHz is a pivotal band which provides huge coverage, indoor penetration (especially useful in India where walls are thick) and is already considered by the European Union to be the 'pioneer band' for 5G, with 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz, both of which were auctioned in India recently.
Says, Jio unlikely to gain 2% revenue market share in 2017
When on October 24, the Supreme Court, on a petition moved by the government, ordered payment of past dues according to its new definition of AGR, the country's second-biggest carrier Vodafone-Idea Ltd warned of shut down if no relief is given. The total dues for the industry ran into a whopping Rs 1.47 lakh crore. For an industry that has come from 7-8 operators to just three private players and state-owned fourth operator, the warning by Vodafone-Idea sounded like a death knell.
All Sensex components ended in green, with Bajaj Finserv, HCL Tech, Bharti Airtel, IndusInd Bank, L&T, TCS, ONGC and ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance and SBI gaining up to 6.64 per cent.
Based on industry estimates, telecom companies, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and BSNL, are expected to invest over $10 billion on buying 5G telecom equipment in the next five years as they transition from non-standalone networks to standalone 5G networks.
Vodafone Idea, the promoter of Aditya Bira Idea Payments Bank, said in a notification to the exchanges late on Friday that the board of the bank approved winding up the business, subject to approval from the Reserve Bank of India.
This is the biggest equity-raising exercise by an Indian corporate within a financial year. The fundraising - led by Citibank, Goldman, Kotak and Axis Capital as bankers - will see participation by foreign and domestic institutional investors.
Cairn files notice against India in $1.6 billion tax dispute.
New Delhi is also set to top its target of raising at least $13 billion.
As India's largest drugmaker unveiled a deal worth up to $4.6bn to sell control to Daiichi Sankyo of Japan, the disbelief at the press conference was palpable.
With the objective of making the country a manufacturing hub for domestic and foreign companies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is launching the NDA government's "Make in India" campaign today.
Tata DOCOMO has announced its intention to launch 3G services around Diwali. Vodafone Essar plans to roll out 3G services by the first quarter of next year.
The company, which had made voluntary disclosures about the bribery incident to the US authorities, also said with this resolution, there was no pending investigations against Cognizant.
Historically, public sector units were conceived of under the assumption that they will control the 'commanding heights' of the Indian economy, which were necessary for rapid industrial growth but where private investment was unwilling to enter.
The network has been built by six telcos to handle high bandwidth demands of emerging technologies and applications.
The rights issue price has been set at Rs 1,257 a share, a discount of nearly 14 per cent to the last closing price of Rs 1,459. The company had set May 14 as the record date for the rights issue, which meant shareholders as on that day would be eligible to apply. Shareholders will be able to apply for one share for every 15 shares held.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, research, Religare Broking, answers your stockmarket queries.
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio, however, continued to add wireless subscribers
With slower than expected growth in smartphone penetration, operators and OEMs are joining hands to provide affordable mobile devices with attractive offers.
During the visit organised by the UK India Business Council and UK Trade and Investment, 129 delegates, including business leaders Vittorio Colao, CEO, Vodafone; Lord Meghnad Desai, noted NRI economist; Terry Hill, chairman, Arup; Evelyn de Rothschild and Gerry Grimstone of Standard Life will visit New Delhi, Pune and Mumbai.
The retrospective tax controversy was highlighted by Vodafone, but Cairn Plc's continuing problems point to the impact this law has had on FDI in India's oil and gas sector.
'Appellants may not lap up the scheme because, first, to do so would amount to admission of guilt, and second, they may have smelled victory before higher appellate forums,' notes S Murlidharan.
The final Test in Brisbane will start on January 15. The series is locked 1-1 after the third Test ended in a draw.
Billionaire Gautam Adani's group is said to be planning a surprise entry into the race to acquire telecom spectrum, which will pitch it directly against Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio and telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel, sources said. Applications for participating in the July 26 auction of airwaves, including those capable of providing fifth-generation or 5G telecom services such as ultra-high-speed internet connectivity, closed on Friday with at least four applications. Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea -- the three private players in the telecom sector -- applied, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.
It will be available in 42 languages, including six Indian languages - Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati and Marathi.
India's tax authorities began investigating Cadbury in 2011.
According to a Deutsche Bank report, the Idea-Vodafone combine will have to pay a 30 per cent lower annual installment on spectrum due to the longer duration of the payment tenure.
According to JP Morgan, it seems that Jio is willing to go for the jugular in chasing market share if this hurts some of its standing rivals like Vodafone and Idea to a point from where they find it difficult to fight back.
Top companies have grabbed a bigger pie of their sectors in the pandemic period, leading to a further rise in market concentration in many industries as measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). The HHI score, which indicates competitive intensity in an industry (or a lack of it), reached a new high in FY21 as bigger firms raised their revenue market shares either organically or through mergers and acquisitions. A higher HHI score indicates a rise in market concentration in favour of a few firms while a lower score means that the industry's revenue is more evenly divided among many companies
Banks have Rs 10 trillion in stressed assets - Rs 7.8 trillion of bad loans and Rs 2.2 trillion of restructured ones.
The Cabinet approved giving Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea Ltd and Reliance Jio an option to avail of a two-year moratorium on payments they were supposed to make in yearly installments for the spectrum bought in auctions.
Sources say companies will have to keep the market share of merged entities below 50% in all circles
Total wireless subscribers increased from 1.1 billion, in January to 1.2 billion in February, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.72 per cent.
Telecom industry body COAI has approached the information technology ministry for removal of fake and misleading messages from social media platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter linking spread of COVID-19 to 5G technology. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), whose members include Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, said the claims linking 5G with coronavirus are baseless as 5G networks have not yet been installed in the country and even 5G trials are yet to be started by the telecom operators. In a letter dated May 15 to MeitY additional secretary Rajendra Kumar, COAI director general S P Kochhar said: "To safeguard the national interest, we request your good office to kindly instruct all the social media platforms such as Facebook, Watsapp, Twitter, etc, to remove all such posts and misleading campaigns from their platforms on an urgent basis." People have been sharing audio and video messages on social media platforms in which 5G towers are being blamed for rise in casualties across the country even though none of the companies have installed 5G technology anywhere in India.
Cabinet will take a decision on a conciliation offer from Vodafone.
Over the past one-and-half years, the number of stocks trading below their respective face value has increased 29 per cent after a sharp correction in stocks of small-cap companies.
