The DoT report is expected by the end of the month.
Benchmark Sensex rebounded by 167 points in a volatile trade on Friday amid buying in ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and Reliance Industries. The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 167.06 points or 0.23 per cent to settle at 71,595.49. During the day, it hit a high of 71,676.49 and a low of 71,200.31.
Airtel Digital TV, the DTH arm of Bharti Airtel, is launching its High Definition service, with set top boxes (STBs) priced at Rs 2,840, further fuelling the price war in the sector.
Telecom market leader Bharti Airtel on Thursday said the industry will need to raise tariffs as margins of operators are getting hurt at the current rate but ruleditself out to be the first to take the step.
It would not produce any content, but market and cater to an array of users like animation and gaming firms, news channels, cinemas and banking institutions.
The operator was directed to pay the spectrum charges based on the combined GSM and CDMA spectrum allocated, which otherwise were to be charged separately, it argued.
The three companies for sale are Reliance Communications, Reliance Telecom and Reliance Infratel.
Equity investors suffered a massive loss of Rs 31 lakh crore on Tuesday as markets went into a tailspin with the BSE Sensex tumbling nearly 6 per cent as vote counting trends showed the BJP may not have a clear majority in the Lok Sabha polls. Erasing the record-rally of the previous trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex cracked 4,389.73 points or 5.74 per cent to settle at 72,079.05. During the day, the benchmark tanked 6,234.35 points or 8.15 per cent to hit a nearly five-month low of 70,234.43.
On Monday, Ambani had said the Reliance group was open to join hands with Bharti Airtel for improving telecom network for 4G services in Punjab.
The Reserve Bank of India said Airtel's board of directors and shareholders have passed resolutions agreeing to increase the limit on the purchase of its equity shares and convertible debentures by foreign institutional investors.
Bharti Airtel on Monday announced a tie-up with US-based Apple Inc to bring the popular GSM-based iPhone in the country.
Debt-saddled telecom operator Vodafone Idea Ltd's Rs 18,000 crore follow-on offering (FPO) opened to a modest response on Thursday with just 26 per cent of shares on offer being sought by investors. Of the 1,260 crore shares on offer, 331.24 crore was subscribed on Thursday, according to information on the BSE. Qualified institutional buyers picked up 61 per cent of their 360 crore shares reserved for them while non-institutional investors sought 28 per cent out of 270 crore shares earmarked for them.
Airtel Broadband & Telephone has tied up with Indiagames for offering online gaming for its broadband customers for Rs 199 per month.
Reliance Industries closed more than half a per cent higher after the company announced a proposed merger of media and entertainment assets of Viacom18 with Star India. Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, ITC, Tech Mahindra and Axis Bank were among the laggards.
Total revenue came in at Rs 20,422 crore for the September quarter, which was 6.2 per cent lower than Rs 21,777 crore notched in the year-ago period.
From the Sensex basket, Asian Paints, Sun Pharma, HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, Axis Bank, Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Larsen & Toubro, ICICI Bank and Power Grid were the major gainers. Tata Motors dropped over 8 per cent despite reporting over three-fold jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 17,528.59 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2024. NTPC, Bharti Airtel, Titan, State Bank of India and Nestle were the other major laggards.
RBI's exercise will take into account standards of governance, the viability of the payment bank (PB) business model, and changes, if any, if needed.
Equity benchmark index Sensex on Wednesday crashed over 900 points to sink below the 73,000 level due to widespread selling pressure amid a sharp fall in smallcap and midcap indices. Besides, deep losses in utility, energy and metal stocks and recent selling by foreign investors added to the gloom, analysts said. Benchmark indices started the session on a positive note, but the selling intensified during afternoon trade, with all sectoral indices ending in the red.
Sanjay Kapoor is the man handpicked by Sunil Mittal, the founder promoter of Bharti Enterprises, to get the next 100 million subscribers for the group's mobile telephony arm, Bharti Airtel. In the space of just a year, Kapoor has been promoted a second time.
DTH major Tata Sky has approached the Advertising Standards Council of India seeking action against its competitor Airtel Digital's ad campaign, alleging that the advertisement was misleading.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted 10-year time to telecom firms like Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices for paying the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR)-related dues to the department of telecommunications with certain conditions.
Among the Sensex constituents, 18 stocks closed in negative with UltraTech Cement, L&T, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance and Tech Mahindra being major laggards. Other heavyweights like Asian Paints, Maruti, Titan and JSW Steel also saw heavy selling. In contrast, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Finserve, HDFC Bank, ITC and SBI bucked the trend and ended the session with a gain of up to 2.09 per cent.
Bharti Airtel customers can now avail its 4G data plans starting from Rs 450, down 31 per cent from Rs 650 earlier in Bengaluru, Kolkata, Pune and Chandigarh circles.
Telecom minister A Raja had said that mobile tariffs should come down to 10 paise for local calls and for 25 paise STD calls per minute.
Among the Sensex constituents, 20 stocks ended the session in green with HDFC Bank, Titan, Tech Mahindra, and Asian Paints being the major gainers. TCS, Maruti, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Bajaj Finserve were the other gainers. In contrast, SBI, Bharti Airtel, JSW Steel, PowerGrid, ITC and Reliance closed the trading with losses.
Bharti Airtel said net sales rose 7.9 per cent
Mobile service provider Airtel will launch enhanced data for global evolution-EDGE services in Kolkata, Jaipur, Chennai and some other cities by March 2005.
Says spending $3 billion every year on networks alone
Bharti Airtel has partnered with UK based in-flight solutions company AeroMobile to offer on-flight cell-phone connectivity to its customers.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Tuesday became the first listed company to hit the Rs 20 lakh crore market valuation mark. The market heavyweight's stock jumped 1.88 per cent to its record high of Rs 2,957.80 apiece on the BSE. It finally settled at Rs 2,928.95 per piece, up 0.90 per cent on the bourse.
Market concentration in the country's telecom sector continues to scale new heights despite government bailouts of public-sector Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), and private-sector Vodafone Idea. The combined revenue (or net sales) share of the country's top two telecom operators - Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio - in the sector's total reached an all-time high of nearly 72 per cent in FY23 from 70.4 per cent in FY22 and around 60 per cent in FY20. The net sales of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel India were Rs 1.67 trillion in FY23, up 18.6 per cent from the Rs 1.4 trillion a year earlier.
The company has purchased the rights to use the 1,800 MHz spectrum in 6 circles.
AirTel has launched a voice-based railway enquiry system both for its pre-paid and post-paid customers.
With investors seeking clarity from the market tribunal SAT on Bharti Airtel's proposed mega deal with MTN, the Sunil Mittal company today said it is still in discussion with the South African firm.
India's first auction of 5G spectrum, that powers ultra-high data speeds, is currently underway with a total of 72 GHz (gigahertz) of radiowaves worth at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore up for bidding. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and a unit of billionaire Gautam Adani's flagship Adani Enterprises are in the race to bid for 5G spectrum, that offers speeds about 10 times faster than 4G, lag-free connectivity, and can enable billions of connected devices to share data in real-time. In addition to powering ultra-low latency connections, which allow downloading full-length high-quality video or movie to a mobile device in a matter of seconds (even in crowded areas), Fifth Generation or 5G would enable solutions such as e-health, connected vehicles, more-immersive augmented reality and metaverse experiences, life-saving use cases, and advanced mobile cloud gaming among others.
The absence of a transparent telecom regulatory environment not only makes life difficult for service providers, but also impacts investors' confidence in the sector, a senior Bharti Airtel official said.
'Blue collar jobs like those of a driver, cook, guard have a steady demand at all times. Many people competent in these domains would be looking out for these jobs at any given point in time. Keeping this in mind, Airtel has made use of communication services and launched this offering to bridge the demand and supply gap,' V Venkatesh, CEO, Mobile Servies, Bharti Airtel, Karnataka, said.
Splitting the market with its new 'segmentation' strategy, AirTel on Tuesday launched an exclusive prepaid card for the youth priced at Rs 249 and two post-paid plans for women and senior citizens with monthly rental of Rs 150 each.
The telecom to look at opportunities to acquire another firm in India.
