The Indian telecom market presented a picture of sharp contrast in May with Bharti Airtel losing a staggering 46.13 lakh wireless subscribers even as rival Reliance Jio added 35.54 lakh mobile users, according to data from telecom regulator Trai. Overall, the Indian mobile market shed 62.7 lakh users in May.
The auction for Broadband Wireless Access started on Monday with 11 players, including Bharti, Vodafone, RCom and Tatas, in the race to acquire the two slots on offer.
Reliance Jio, India's top telecom operator, announced a 12-27 per cent hike in mobile tariffs -- the first in two and half years, setting the stage for other operators like Vodafone Idea to raise charges. The company has also restricted the access of unlimited free 5G services for customers. The hike comes immediately after the spectrum auction, as per the anticipation of sector experts.
SC said 10 per cent of the amount would have to be paid by March 31.
Cash-strapped telco Vodafone Idea's proposal for investment of up to Rs 15,000 crore through foreign direct investment (FDI) has been approved by the Union government, according to officials. A top-level group, comprising representatives from the ministries of home affairs, external affairs, finance and commerce and industry, took the decision. The nod, which is an enabling provision, would help the financially-stressed company raise funds to pay up some of its dues linked to adjusted gross revenue (AGR), reduce debts and use the money for operational expenses.
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.
Tata Teleservices has announced plans to launch 3G services by Diwali, while Vodafone has said it will launch the services by early 2011.
Unlike Reliance Jio's focus on 4G, it plans to segment the data market based on device prices and spectrum.
Bharti Airtel's total revenue for the December 2018 quarter stood at Rs 20,519 crore, just one per cent higher than the Rs 20,319 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.
The clarification comes a day after Vodafone signed a shareholders' agreement with the Essar group.
After continuously bleeding subscribers for nearly two years, state-owned telecom services provider BSNL added 2.9 million users in July when its private-sector rivals raised tariffs by nearly 20 per cent. With BSNL keeping tariffs unchanged, many subscribers using entry-level plans shifted from Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi), said analysts.
Country's largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel on Monday revealed its plans to launch iPhone 4, the latest product from Apple Computers's stable, by October.
The stake, which is valued at Rs 8,200 crore at the company's current market capitalisation, will be sold by one of the group companies of Bharti Enterprises.
Telcos Reliance Jio and Bharti may post a 5-7 per cent sequential rise in revenue with a steady margin for the second quarter of FY22, according to Jefferies. Bharti's growth will be led by segmented tariff hikes taken in the second quarter ended September, while Jio's growth will be driven by continued subscriber growth, it further said. Jefferies expects the outlook on tariff hikes for Bharti, further details on JioPhone Next for Jio, and tenancy outlook for Indus Towers to be the key things to watch for in the September quarter.
The pack is available for Rs 1,495 for existing users and Rs 1,494 for new users, and effectively brings down 4G data rates to Rs 50 per GB
The Rs 51 per GB data versus industry norm of Rs 250-plus comes with the caveat of an upfront payment of Rs 1,498 for a year
The telco, being one of the first operators in the circle, has a strong base of high-value subscribers; Airtel could leverage that for its top-end services.
According to rating agency Fitch, India can in the long run support five-six profitable telecom operators.
The Sunil Bharti Mittal-led firm on Sunday approached its competitors to set up intra-circle roaming and other processes in the way it is done by the sector to respond to disasters.
Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile operator, and Idea, a smaller rival, have agreed to pool network infrastructure in a joint venture that may in the future seek a stock exchange listing.
Debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea on Tuesday announced an increase in mobile call and data tariffs across plans by 20-25 per cent. The higher tariffs will be effective from November 25, it said in a statement. The company has increased the minimum value of recharge by 25.31 per cent for 28 days period to Rs 99 from Rs 79.
India's telecom subscriber base grew to over 1.17 billion in October with Bharti Airtel maintaining its leadership in mobile subscriber addition that accounts for over 98 per cent of total connections in the country, according to the monthly report released by sector regulator Trai on Wednesday. This is the second consecutive month when Airtel added highest number of subscribers. In September, it had regained the leadership position in subscriber addition after a gap of four years. The Sunil Bharti Mittal-led company added 3.67 million new customers in October, taking its total wireless customer base to 330.28 million in October 2020, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) report said.
Vodafone Plc and its ex-shareholders have suffered due to the delay in an Initial Public Offer (IPO) of its Indian unit.
Consumers are unlikely to disconnect their mobile connections and will most likely absorb the up to 22 per cent tariff hike imposed last week by Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi), according to analysts. The last major tariff hike in 2021 was followed by a 4-5 per cent SIM consolidation, with people leaving mobile operators with more expensive plans for their peers offering comparatively affordable options.
In July 2012, TDSAT gave split verdict where one of the bench member ruled in favour and other member ordered against it.
Firms to pay Rs 24,700 cr if spectrum formula is accepted.
The telecom regulator had suggested imposition of a price on operators for holding spectrum beyond the contracted limit of 6.2MHz.
After a long wait, Tata Teleservices on Thursday launched the premium Blackberry mobile services that offers customers e-mail, SMS messaging and Internet-based applications.
The company wants to woo post-paid customers and rent out its assets to cut debt.
These circles account for 23 per cent of Bharti's revenues and armed with additional spectrum, it will eat into rivals' share
The GSM operators decided to withdraw their plea when the TDSAT was about to reserve its order on the maintainability of the petition after hearing the case for more than one-and-a-half hours.
Airtel says to avail alternative routes to keep services on.
The joint letter to Manmohan Singh was written by Sunil Mittal, chairman of Bharti Airtel, Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the Aditya Birla group which has promoted Idea Cellular, and Vittoria Colao, chairman of Vodafone Group Plc.
DoT has stated in an internal note that the 3G roaming agreements between these three companies are tantamount to their becoming mobile virtual network operators, something not allowed under the current policy.
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 government has ruled out banning Blackberry services in India. This was stated by the telecom secretary in New Delhi on Friday.Security agencies had said that they should have access to data that are being encrypted by services like BlackBerry on mobile phones and then decrypted when the phone reaches its destination. The government had cited security concerns as it could not monitor the content on RIM's servers, which were located in Canada and other foreign locations.
Losing subscribers for the fourth straight month, Reliance Jio witnessed 3.76 million users leave the telecom operator in October, data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed on Monday. Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel reversed three months of decline, and added 1.92 million users, indicating it has overcome the impact of the broad-based tariff hikes imposed by private sector telcos in July.
The government is likely to get about Rs 24,000 crore from one-time spectrum fee that has been levied on existing operators for holding radiowaves beyond a prescribed limit.
Members of COAI, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar, Idea Cellular and others met in New Delhi and decided to go ahead with filing of the affidavit in TDSAT against the Telecom Engineering Centre's report. COAI has also questioned the government's move to allocate spectrum to two telecom PSUs -- BSNL and MTNL -- saying they have been given frequency out of turn as many other players have been waiting to get spectrum for months and even years now.
Mobile tariffs are currently under forbearance, which means these are determined by market forces.
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