Country's second largest telecom player Vodafone has launched Rs 5 per day scheme offering free incoming calls, cheaper outgoing calls and SMS rates during national roaming.
Telecom services providers have urged the Ministry of Finance to suspend the universal service obligation (USOF) till the existing corpus is exhausted. In their Budget recommendations, they have also pressed for an exemption from the service tax on "assignment of right to use natural resources" and the slashing of Customs duty on telecom equipment to zero. The Cellular Operators Association of India (Coai), which represents private sector telecom operators Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, called for abolishment of USOF levy.
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.
DoT officials said instructions have been issued to Idea and Vodafone to provide the requisite information to IB at the earliest.
The dispute over the tax payable for its purchase in 2007 of the 67 per cent stake in Hutch is on an amount of Rs 11,200 crore (Rs 112 billion).
Country accounts for 38% of telco's global user base, 10% of total revenue
The rumour verification process would now be triggered by changes in price or 'material price movements', as the paper defines it. What this means is that companies would need to verify rumours only if the share price moves significantly.
The company has booked around 350 spots for the 2015 tournament.
But the road map of telecom will be decided by one thing: Whether Jio sticks to its ambitious plan and whether incumbents have enough financial muscle or ability to raise money every year to ensure that Jio does not reach its target, says Surajeet Das Gupta.
Every service provider, say analysts, now needs to make a much larger investment, and therefore needs a much larger share of the market to be profitable.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio is India's strongest telecom brand in India, ahead of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Ltd, according to brand intelligence and data insights company TRA. TRA, formerly Trust Research Advisory, in its 'India's Most Desired Brands 2022' ranked companies according to their brand strength. Reliance Jio topped the telecom category, followed by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea Ltd and BSNL.
When it comes to the number of phone bill disputes, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, BSNL and Aircel were high on the list in several service areas during the quarter ended June.
Idea Cellular has gone off the beaten track in its 3G growth strategy.
Ailing telecom operator Vodafone Idea has flagged the industry's "unsustainable financial duress" in its latest annual report and hoped that the government would provide the necessary support to address "all structural issues" faced by the sector. In the chairman's letter to shareholders, Himanshu Kapania cited persistent challenges in the operating environment, amid "unsustainable pricing" and "hyper-competition" during FY21. Kapania expressed hope that government will support efforts to generate reasonable returns on massive investments.
The telecom companies have also been asked to urgently improve their infrastructure, as the government aims to digitise a host of services.
The government believes firms which are subject to China's laws could be forced to hand over information to Beijing's security services.
RCom and Tata Teleservices are the top net losers of subscribers under mobile number portability (MNP) services.
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.
India's third largest telecom operator Idea Cellular joined the data tariff war by slashing 2G mobile internet rates by 90 per cent and 3G tariffs by 30 per cent for six months from November 15.
The big advantage that Jio is able to garner currently is its low cost of operations.
IndusInd Bank, Suzlon, and Paytm will remain under focus, as the stocks are pegged to get added to the MSCI global standard index. These stocks, along with six others, are seen attracting cumulative inflows of nearly $2 billion from passive funds tracking MSCI indices. Persistent Systems, APL Apollo, Polycab, Macrotech Developers, Tata Motors DVR, and Tata Communication are the other six stocks that will be added to the MSCI index, shows an analysis done by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research.
There have been several positive signals in Bharti Airtel with revenue market share (RMS) growth, better visibility of profits from Africa, and enough free cash flow to pursue deleveraging. Airtel's 4G and 5G data subscriber net additions were 5.6 million in Q1FY24, and 24.5 million in the last 12 months. Airtel currently has 230 million data subscribers on 4G/5G, which is about 70 per cent penetration of its base of 339 million subscribers.
India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio gained 17.6 lakh mobile subscribers in October 2021 while market rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost a cumulative 14.5 lakh users during the month, according to the latest data released by TRAI on Monday. Bharti Airtel lost 4.89 lakh mobile users in October, while Vodafone Idea lost 9.64 lakh subscribers during the reported period. Reliance Jio's mobile subscriber base surged to 42.65 crore in October, as the telco added 17.61 lakh mobile users in the month, according to data by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
The next spectrum auction will be held in late February 2024 and the reserve price for most bands will remain the same as the 2022 auction, department of telecommunications (DoT) officials have said. The government expects operators to go for low bands beginning in 600 megahertz (MHz), licences for many of which are lapsing soon. Back in September 2021, the government had decided that spectrum auctions should be held annually.
The new offer is part of its strategy to turn India to an exclusively 4G market.
Reliance Jio maintained the top position in the 4G speed chart with a 20.9 megabit per second (Mbps) average download rate in September, while Vodafone Idea topped in the upload segment with 7.2 Mbps data speed, as per telecom regulator Trai. Reliance Jio's 4G network speed increased by about 15 per cent in September while its competitors Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (VIL) speed jumped by about 85 per cent and 60 per cent month-on-month to 11.9 Mbps and 14.4 Mbps, respectively, according to data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
'We showcased about 20 use cases in 5G trials in Pune and Gandhinagar and some of them were interesting and innovative.' 'However, which ones will take off and which ones would not be relevant, we don't know yet.'
A record over Rs 1.5 lakh crore worth of 5G telecom spectrum was sold in a seven-day auction ending on Monday, which saw billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Jio emerging as the top bidder to consolidate its leadership position. Sources with direct knowledge of the matter said provisional data puts the total bids at Rs 150,173 crore. The mop-up from the 5G spectrum, capable of offering ultra-high speed mobile internet connectivity, is almost double at Rs 77,815 crore worth 4G airwaves sold last year and triple of Rs 50,968.37 crore garnered from a 3G auction in 2010.
Capital expenditure by Indian companies is likely to see an uptick in the upcoming quarters as capacity utilisation has surpassed the critical threshold of 75 per cent, and numerous companies have deleveraged their balance sheets, according to analysts. The first quarter of the current financial year has shown improved profitability, driven by a decrease in input prices. This, according to analysts at Care Ratings, should stimulate a revival in the private capex cycle.
Spectrum auction on Thursday entered the 10th day of bidding and started off from Rs 61,091.83 crore (Rs 610.91 billion) in terms of value.
Vodafone Idea's (Vi's) search for a lifeline has turned longer and tougher even as it continues to lose customers and delay vendor payments. Vi's much-needed Rs 1,600-crore fundraising plan got stuck due to the government's silence on picking up a proposed 33 per cent equity in the financially stressed telco. The development spells further trouble for the company, which has an overall debt pile of Rs 2.2 trillion, including hefty dues to the government.
Limited visibility around tariff hike and lack of clarity on new funding could make Vodafone Idea "more dependent" on any form of government relief for improvement of its fundamentals, BofA Securities has said in its latest report. The top brass of cash-strapped telco Vodafone Idea had last week said 'floor price' remains the "best and most preferred" fix for industry's woes arising from tariff-related issues. The company, whose fundraising plans have been significantly delayed, had further said it is in active talks with potential investors, and emphasised that there is no reason to start working on an alternate 'Plan B'.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) has slapped a penalty of Rs 2,000 crore on Vodafone Idea and Rs 1,050 crore on Bharti Airtel based on sector regulator Trai's recommendation five years ago, according to sources. The DoT has given three weeks time to the telecom operators to pay the penalty, a source said while sharing the content of the demand notice served to the companies on Thursday. When contacted Bharti Airtel spokesperson said, "We are deeply disappointed with the arbitrary and unfair demand based on Trai recommendations of 2016 relating to provisions of point of interconnect to a new operator.
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
Vodafone Idea will gradually lose market share given its weak balance sheet and limited financial flexibility, says Fitch.
The Telecommunications Bill, 2023, which was passed by a voice vote after a short debate, also allows the Centre to take possession of a telecom network in case of any public emergency or in the interest of public safety.
Over the three-month period, Airtel's stock price has rallied from Rs 432 to Rs 540, while Vodafone Idea has risen from Rs 9.2 to Rs 11.8 per share.
The launch of internet-enabled Jio Bharat phones at an "attractive pricing" will enable Jio to gain market share at the lower end segment and signals a reduced probability of tariff hike in the near term, brokerages tracking the sector said. Jio on Monday launched internet-enabled Jio Bharat phones at Rs 999, packing in a cheaper monthly plan of Rs 123 for unlimited voice calls and 14 GB data. The new offering aims to accelerate the '2G Mukt Bharat' vision, as India still has 250 million mobile subscribers trapped in the 2G era with feature phones.
The number of mobile phone connections in India rose by 1.96 million in March, after reducing by 1.06 million in February, latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed. The number of new connections have hit a 9-month high. In these past 9-months, the total number of wireless (mobile phone) subscriptions had reduced on 5 occasions, the data shows.
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