Profit taking in Bajaj Finance, Nestle, Kotak Bank, SBI, Bharti Airtel L&T and Asian Paints also weighed on the benchmark index. Maruti bucked the trend by gaining 1.73 per cent after strong retails sales in September. Power Grid, M&M. JSW Steel and Tata Steel also advanced.
Customers have to press the green key on their Airtel Digital TV remote to enable and access the service.
Standard call rates to countries like the US, the UK and Canada has been raised.
The plan coming under 'Super Lifetime Prepaid' offers an Airtel user local outgoing tariff of Re 1 for life. Under this plan, the customer can stay mobile by paying just Rs 999 and they have to use a minimum of Rs 200 every 180 days to continue enjoying lifetime validity benefits.
Consolidated EBITDA came in at Rs 8,265 crore.
Bajaj Finance was the biggest gainer in the Sensex pack, rising 2.70 per cent, followed by Power Grid, IndusInd Bank, NTPC, Bharti Airtel, ITC, Bajaj Finserv, Infosys, Nestle, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services, Titan and Axis Bank. Reliance Industries, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti and State Bank of India were among the laggards.
IndusInd Bank was the biggest gainer in the Sensex pack, rising 3.25 per cent, followed by Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Bharti Airtel, HCL Technologies, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, RIL, TCS, L&T and Infosys. State Bank of India, NTPC, Maruti, Bajaj Finserv, Tata Motors and Power Grid were among the laggards, slipping up to 2.94 per cent.
While the M1 Group, which holds 9.8 per cent in MTN, today backed Bharti's bid, Singapore Telecommunications said it has no objection to the acquisition.
An internal committee of Department of Telecom had alleged that Bharti Airtel had continued to route national and international calls as local calls under a scheme till 2005 despite being told to stop it in 2003.
Bharti Airtel was awarded for its performance in the South Asian region, the company said. The selection of the company was based on the parameters of growth in mobile subscriber base, EBIDTA margins, market share and Average Revenue per User.
Trai has invited comments till January 7 on its paper on differential data pricing.
With this, the Bharti group companies had enhanced their voting interest in Bharti Airtel to over 50 per cent, the company said in a statement.
Bharti Airtel was the biggest gainer in the Sensex pack, rising 2.37 per cent, followed by Mahindra & Mahindra, HCL Tech, Tata Motors, Tech Mahindra, HDFC Bank, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Axis Bank and Nestle. Asian Paints, Hindustan Unilever, Bajaj Finserv and NTPC were among the laggards.
According to BSE, Bharti Airtel's revenue (on a standalone basis, excluding that from foreign operations and their subsidiaries) stood at Rs 49,919 crore (Rs 499.19 billion).
The company said its customers who are Facebook users on the mobile (browser or app) will be able to access Facebook in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Thursday said it has slashed the monthly rental for its services on business phone Blackerry by up to 75 per cent to Rs 249 per month.
The country's largest mobile service provider Bharti Airtel is all set to overhaul its look and come forth in a new avatar. The re-designed logo would be launched for Indian as well as overseas operations to bring synergy among the company's business ventures.
Airtel customers will be able to enjoy Disney entertainment programmes on their mobile phones under an agreement between the operator and Disney Mobile Theatre.
According to rating agency Fitch, India can in the long run support five-six profitable telecom operators.
Of the top 10 valued firms, eight including Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), HDFC Bank, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, HDFC and ITC witnessed gains in their market valuation. From the top-10 pack, the valuation of HDFC Bank jumped Rs 31,553.45 crore to Rs 929,752.54 crore.
The Supreme Court on Friday declined the request of Vodafone and Bharti Airtel to extend their licences along with spectrum for 10 more years.
Eight of the 10 most valued firms faced a combined erosion of Rs 1,17,493.78 crore in market valuation in an overall weak trend in equities last week, with Infosys taking the biggest hit. Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank were among the eight companies that suffered a decline in their valuation. ITC and State Bank of India were the only gainers. Last week, the 30-share BSE Sensex fell by 775.94 points or 1.28 per cent.
But, unlike its competitors, it did not have a comprehensive infrastructure back-end and required fresh investments.
Bharti Airtel reported a 47 per cent year-on-year rise in consolidated revenues at Rs 15,215 crore (Rs 152.15 billion) in the September quarter.
Airtel is offering three packs: the Breakfree plan for Rs 999 for free data usage quota of six GB (giga bytes), the Breakfree Max plan worth Rs 1,399 with free data usage of nine GB, and the Breakfree Ultra plan worth Rs 1,999 allowing free data usage of up to 18 GB.
From the Sensex pack, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Titan, UltraTech Cement, ITC, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the major gainers. Tata Steel, Axis Bank, NTPC, ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank were the major laggards.
The call failure rate, Jio said, has been worsening rapidly in the last few days, while augmentation of interconnection capacity is still awaited
Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Friday expressed concern over the manner in which penalties are being imposed for different violations of licence terms and conditions, and said operators have collectively paid over Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) so far to the government as fines.
It challenged the Delhi High Court's order giving its nod to the Centre's decision holding the 3G roaming pact of the telecom major as illegal.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Wednesday reported a 29 per cent decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 512 crore (Rs 5.12 billion) for the quarter ended September 30, 2013, mainly on account of increase in finance cost and forex losses due to rupee depreciation.
Shares of HDFC Bank will witness massive inflows totalling $600 million from passive trackers this week, predict analysts. This influx is attributed to the rebalancing activities in the S&B BSE Sensex and the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) indices. The Sensex is set for its quarterly rebalancing act on September 15 (date of adjustment), resulting in inflows of $102 million (approximately Rs 850 crore).
For Vittal, who will take over from the current CEO, Sanjay Kapoor, in March, reversing the telco's shrinking revenues and market share will be among the first of the challenges.
While a group of officials believed a case against the two telecom companies was made out as they were only beneficiaries of the laid down policy, another team of officials involved in decision-making differed, official sources said on Monday.
The government on Tuesday said it has not received any application for 2G spectrum auction except that of Sistema Shyam Teleservices that will bid for CDMA spectrum.
On the back of this, leading GSM incumbent Bharti Airtel's shares opened on a bullish note and then gained further ground and touched an early high of Rs 334.55 on the BSE, higher by 8.96 per cent from its previous closing price.
Sunil Mittal will become executive chairman.