Bharti Airtel and Tata Group have terminated discussions for a merger of their direct-to-home (DTH) business, according to a Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) filing on Saturday.
Bharti Airtel is expected to see its highest revenue growth, and subscriber addition during the third quarter (October-December) of FY25 among telcos, said analysts. The telco's top line in Q3 may see the fastest sequential growth at 5 per cent compared to 3 per cent for Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi). Airtel's annual mobile revenue growth would rise to 16 per cent, IIFL Capital said in an analyst note.
Bharti Airtel on Wednesday announced a new corporate structure to sharpen the company's focus on rapidly unfolding digital opportunities while enabling it to unlock value. The move comes at a time when digital is turning out to be a compelling proposition for players in the Indian market, where the use of smartphones and better broadband connectivity has spurred the adoption of a new range of services. Players are positioning themselves beyond the core telephony offerings, as they enhance digital engagement, build future streams of revenue and create brand differentiation, besides redefining themselves as a larger platform of digital services, say market watchers.
With the start of general elections as a source of revenue Bharti Airtel's direct-to-home arm is ready to launch its mobile DTH units for cars.
Bharti Airtel on Monday launched its Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service, becoming the first private player to offer the service in the country.
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 service, offering 175 channels, will be initially available to customers in 62 cities -- starting October 9, 2008 -- through 21,000 retail points, including retail relationship centres across the country. Later, it will be expanded to 252 cities.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Tuesday reported a 91.5 per cent year-on-year rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,588 crore for the three months ended December 2022, helped by competitive growth across businesses. Total revenue rose nearly 20 per cent to Rs 35,804 crore in the third quarter of the current financial year "backed by strong and consistent performance delivery across the portfolio", the company said in a statement. Its consolidated net income (after exceptional items) stood at Rs 1,588 crore for the just ended quarter, translating into an increase of 91.5 per cent year-on-year.
Bharti Airtel delivered encouraging results for the January-March quarter of the 2022-23 financial year (Q4FY23) as telecom and associated services moved into the 5G zone. In India, Airtel's mobile Q4 revenue and Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) were Rs 19,550 crore (up 1 per cent quarter-on-quarter or QoQ) and Rs 10,530 crore (up 1.1 per cent QoQ), respectively. The Ebitda margin was flat at 52.2 per cent.
Bharti Airtel said on Wednesday its digital services added 1.50 million customers between April and October this year and 60 per cent of its subscribers are from the rural region.
Shares of telecom services providers - Reliance Industries (parent of Reliance Jio), Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea - have shed up to 23 per cent so far in the current calendar year as growth in the wireless subscriber segment begins to plateau amid higher tariffs and rising costs of smartphones. By comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, and sectoral index BSE Telecom have dipped 1.8 per cent, and 12.6 per cent, respectively, ACE Equity data shows. However, analysts expect the trend to reverse soon as telecom services providers focus on the next leg of growth -- fixed broadband (FBB) segment.
President, Telemedia Services, Bharti Airtel, Atul Bindal, said unlike DTH, IPTV services would be available only in few major cities. The company had recently introduced DTH service in the country.
When, recently, Bharti Airtel announced a Rs 21,000 crore rights issue, analysts pointed out that its structure was similar to that of Reliance's issue in June 2020. One similarity is that shareholders in both companies have to pay only 25 per cent of the money on application. The rest is to be paid in two tranches. In Bharti Airtel's case, it is within 36 months; in Reliance Jio's, it is within 17 months.
As part of the partnership, Airtel Digital TV - the DTH arm of Bharti Airtel - will offer the radio service on its iMusicSpace application.
Videocon plans a foray into the direct to home business. The company has applied for the DTH licence and is expected to start services by next year, government sources said.
Infosys already works with a communication services provider major in Western Europe in the digital TV space. The company has a solution called modular content accelerator which serves as an interface between stakeholders of consumer marketing and IT. The solution provides an operator the means to efficiently manage content catalogue, bundled offers and pricing, apart from providing interactive services through multi-media content storefront.
Bharti Airtel is rolling out last-mile connectivity with a target of reaching over 20 mn addressable households in 90-100 cities in the next 3 years
Airtel Xstream will allow its subscribers to access live TV, video, music, news and sports on an over-the-top smart stick, interned-enabled set top box, and handheld devices.
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.
Bharti hopes to make Airtel the country's most-admired brand by 2010. Has it done enough to rise above the clutter?
Trai plans to allow consumers to change operators without changing set-top box
Bharti Teletech, India's largest fixed line phone manufacturer and flagship of the AirTel Group, on Friday announced its entry into digital set top boxes used for the direct-to-home services with an initial investment of $2 million.
It all began as one of its customers did not want a Muslim representative to resolve a problem. Rather, the customer wanted a Hindu representative to resolve the issue.
Big TV, the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Amabni Group's soon-to-be-launched direct-to-home venture, has bagged the official DTH partnership for the Indian Premier League, the Board of Control for Cricket in India's Twenty20 cricket tournament, for a bid of $31.16 million (about Rs 137 crore) for the next four years.
At a time when key economic indicators are pointing to a slowdown, market leaders in three sectors have been raising prices to maintain margins.
Tata Group had hinted at combining its enterprise business with Tata Communications and its fixed-line and broadband businesses with Tata Sky.
The digital video recorder, which allows viewers to record programmes in one channel while watching another and play according to convenience, is being billed as the next big thing in the evolving Indian DTH market. "This, of course, will be a premium product and we plan to announce the launch of DVR technology platform for our DTH service very soon. It will be a Diwali gift to our customers," TataSky Chief Marketing Officer Vikram Mehra told PTI.
Laying fibre to home is a cumbersome and a slow process as every building has to be physically wired.
Service was launched in Mumbai in July and it will be expanded across the country in a phased manner
Telecom firms like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and MTNL have shown interest to start IPTV services, where television signal is carried to homes through telecom lines and broadband.
Starting with a family, which had a dealership of Bajaj Auto's scooters, to becoming the owner of a household name in consumer appliances who could afford to have Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador, Venugopal Dhoot's is a story of an aggressive small town businessman's pursuit to be on the top. Now arrested in connection with the ICICI Bank loan fraud case, Venugopal Dhoot during his heydays was not the one to simply sit on small achievements like Videocon becoming the largest television set manufacturer in India.
The move comes a few days after billionaire businessman Elon Musk tweeted that his Starlink internet services would be available in India as soon as it gets regulatory approvals next year. Musk's Starlink, which plans to have a constellation of 40,000 low-orbit satellites, recently started offering high-speed internet in the US as part of its beta launch phase.
Nifty crosses 9,750-mark; Bharti Airtel, TCS, Wipro, Lupin and Coal India gained the most on BSE Sensex
Companies have activated a comprehensive pandemic response plan with requisite risk mitigation protocols for keeping networks working as telecom is an essential service.
This merger, Bhupesh Bhandari believes, will be watched keenly by management gurus the world over.
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