Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had told Parliament in November that Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and other telecom companies owe the government as much as Rs 1.47 lakh crore in past statutory dues.
Vodafone Idea on Wednesday said its board has approved availing the four-year spectrum payment moratorium being offered by the government as part of its relief package for the telecom sector. The other options offered in the Telecom Department's notification will be considered by the board of directors within the stipulated timeframe, it said in a regulatory filing. "...we wish to inform you that the Board of Directors of the company has approved the exercise of the option of deferment of the company's spectrum auction instalments for a period of 4 years (October 2021 to September 2025) in accordance with ...the notification dated 14 October 2021 issued by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to the company," it said.
Cellular operators' body COAI had, last year, alleged that the new entrant Reliance Jio was attempting to acquire customers by offering connection loaded with freebies, in the guise of a trial launch.
Gas production from Krishna Godavari basin block has dropped to just over 12 mmscmd and RIL is carrying out workover on main Dhirubhai-1 and 3 gas fields.
The company at present provides monthly mobile services at starting price of Rs 24 without data, and plans with data service starts from Rs 33 onward. It did not disclose the quantum of hike.
Its trajectory in telecom is well known but now it is pushing for a similar leap into the ranks of the top players in its other businesses: media and entertainment, e-commerce, a series of online businesses ranging from health to education, and retail.
Reliance announced energy asset sales worth around $ 16 billion; end of the investment cycle in telecom; bringing net-debt to zero in 18 months; value-unlocking options for real estate and financial assets; listing of telecom and retail in five years; and focus on dividends.
Six consecutive profitable quarters after an equal number of losses - for Bharti Airtel, the turnaround has been quick. But it is not a result of higher tariffs or absence of exceptional items alone. Execution and strategy are playing a part, too. Bharti Airtel's chief executive officer Gopal Vittal summed it up in a post-result conference call last month. "We track the profit in each of our 237,500 (cell) sites.
Jio has accused incumbent telecom operators for not providing the required number of equipment to connect its mobile network with theirs
Reliance Industries will by 2030 create or enable capacity to generate at least 100 gigawatts of electricity from renewable sources, which can be converted into carbon-free green hydrogen, its chairman Mukesh Ambani said Friday as he outlined a 1-1-1 vision to bring down the cost of hydrogen to under $1 per 1 kg in 1 decade. The focus on generating electricity from renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind -will help cut carbon emissions in the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter. The same electricity, when converted into green hydrogen, can replace petrol and diesel in automobiles and other fuels in the industry, helping cut down on the use of fossil fuels, carbon emissions and reduce import dependence.
Ordering groceries, vegetables and daily essentials is just a WhatsApp away as billionaire Mukesh Ambani's e-commerce platform JioMart taps into the popular messaging app to scale up online business in its fight for dominance in the giant Indian retail market with Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart. Ambani's twin children, Akash and Isha gave a preview of the ordering at Meta's second edition of the Fuel for India event on Wednesday. A new 'tap and chat' option allows users to order groceries through WhatsApp.
Intel Capital is the 12th company to join the list of marquee firms who have recently invested in Jio Platforms, taking the total investment amount to Rs 1,17,588.45 crore.
After a turnaround in performance by Indian equity markets since July that has seen the S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 wipe out the year-to-date losses, analysts suggest investors start nibbling into stocks that are focused on the domestic economy. While they say intermittent corrections, led by policies of global central banks and other economic data, cannot be ruled out, analysts expect India's relative outperformance among global equity markets to continue as it looks better placed with a healthy economic recovery, and remains one of the fastest growing major economies. In this backdrop, Neeraj Chadawar, head of quantitative equity strategy at Axis Securities, believes that amid global slowdown, aggressive tightening by the central banks, and preference for domestic interests first (by the local government), export-oriented themes are likely to be muted or will deliver conservative returns in the near-term.
More than 87 per cent of the spectrum has been allocated to bidders.
PowerGrid was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding around 3 per cent, followed by Asian Paints, Axis Bank, Kotak Bank, Bajaj Auto, SBI and M&M.
The latest move, even if it is symbolic, is the first rate hike after the one announced end of 2019.
With this investment, Jio Platforms has raised Rs 115,693.95 crore from some of the leading global investment powerhouses at a time when the world is deeply impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
India's second-largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Tuesday posted more than twofold year-on-year jump in its consolidated net profit for the March quarter to Rs 2,008 crore, buoyed by a lift in average revenue per user and an exceptional gain. The telco said its Q4 scorecard was backed by strong performance delivery across the portfolio and its CEO Gopal Vittal, in a statement, exuded optimism about opportunities in the coming years and Airtel being "well-poised" as a company. Airtel, which competes in the market with Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea, as well as state-owned BSNL/MTNL, promised to maintain razor sharp focus on financial flexibility, optimising the capital structure and finance cost.
Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday said India will grow to be among the top three economies in the world in the next two decades and per capita income would more than double. At a fireside chat with Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg, he said India's middle-class, which is about 50 per cent of the nation's total number of households, will grow three to four per cent per year.
Jio's global partnerships took shape this year when Jio Platforms, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Reliance Jio which has invested in various digital platforms, was able to woo a bevy of marquee investors: Facebook, Google, Qualcomm, Intel, and a numerous PE funds.
Consolidated revenue rose to a record Rs 163,854 crore.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your stock market queries.
Despite a massive underperformance at the bourses since the last six months, analysts are turning optimistic on Reliance Industries (RIL). Those at Jefferies, for instance, say that the company is a proxy play for India's consumption growth story. The key catalysts for the stock, according to a Jeffries note, include faster-than-expected market share gain in retail, oil-to-chemicals (O2C) stake sale, recovery in gross refining margins (GRM), potential public listing of Jio and even a possible banking licence going ahead. That apart, analysts feel any tariff hike in Reliance Jio (RJio) - its telecom venture - will also aid performance. With balance sheet adequately de-levered, proceeds from a strategic stake sale in the O2C business will create a sizeable war chest for the company, analysts say.
It, however, remains to be seen how much money Softbank actually puts in, what the implied equity valuation is and if the e-commerce venture is included in the Jio entity.
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.
Among other gainers, Sun Pharma rallied 5.73 per cent, IndusInd Bank 5.50 per cent and Yes Bank jumped 2.65 per cent.
Sensex rally was driven by Bajaj FinServ, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank, HDFC and Axis Bank. NSE Nifty climbed 326.50 points to end at 15,245.60.
CBI prosecutor K K Goel opposed the application saying it was "dragging the trial" and noted that Anil Ambani too had filed a similar plea earlier.
Reliance earned $11.50 for every barrel of crude that it processed during the last three months of the calendar year - almost 60 per cent more than a year earlier.
Telecom operators, including Reliance Jio, have been demanding "same service same rules" regime which means that mobile applications providing calls and messaging services should also be made to comply with set of rules that are mandatory for mobile service providers.
The telecom regulator on Friday released a list of 40 "defaulter" principal entities, including large banks like HDFC Bank, SBI and ICICI Bank, that are not fulfilling the regulatory norms on bulk commercial messages despite repeated reminders. Hardening its stance on the issue, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) warned that defaulting entities should comply with the stipulated requirements by March 31, 2021 "to avoid any disruption in the communication with customers" from April 1, 2021. "As sufficient opportunity has been given to principal entities/ telemarketers to comply with the regulatory requirements and that the consumers cannot be deprived of the benefits of the regulatory provisions any further, therefore it has been decided that from April 1, 2021, any message failing in the scrubbing process due to non-compliance of regulatory requirements will be rejected" by the system, TRAI said in a statement.
The market capitalisation of the BSE-listed companies reached an all-time high of Rs 220.74 lakh crore on Thursday, helped by a bullish sentiment in the equity market. At the close of trade, their market capitalisation stood at Rs 2,20,74,421.11 crore. The 30-share BSE benchmark closed 97.70 points, or 0.19 per cent, higher at 51,115.22 on Thursday.
Richest Indian Gautam Adani's ports-to-power-to-cement conglomerate is "deeply overleveraged" with the group predominantly using debt to invest aggressively across existing as well as new businesses, CreditSights, a Fitch Group unit, said on Tuesday. In a report titled 'Adani Group: Deeply Overleveraged', CreditSights said, "In the worst-case scenario, overly ambitious debt-funded growth plans could eventually spiral into a massive debt trap, and possibly culminate into a distressed situation or default of one or more group companies." Starting out as a commodities trader in the late 1980s, the Adani group has diversified from mines, ports and power plants into airports, data centers and defence.
Hiring for management professionals with greater than 16 years of experience witnessed a spike of 66% compared to last year.
Private equity investments in Indian companies grew 38 per cent to $62.2 billion last year, with inflows into Reliance Industries' telecom and retail ventures contributing nearly 40 per cent of the total value of the deals, a report said on Wednesday. Barring investments into Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail, the total deal value was down by 20 per cent over 2019 as the volume of large deals of more than $100 million dipped by a fourth, as per the report by Bain & Company and India Venture Capital Association. Overall investment activity remained muted from March to May last year due to COVID-led uncertainties and investor confidence recovered strongly in the second half to pre-COVID levels with late-stage and buyout deals witnessing increased traction, it said.
Top companies have grabbed a bigger pie of their sectors in the pandemic period, leading to a further rise in market concentration in many industries as measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). The HHI score, which indicates competitive intensity in an industry (or a lack of it), reached a new high in FY21 as bigger firms raised their revenue market shares either organically or through mergers and acquisitions. A higher HHI score indicates a rise in market concentration in favour of a few firms while a lower score means that the industry's revenue is more evenly divided among many companies
While Bajaj Finance, Asian Paints, Tata Steel, NTPC and SBI were among the other gainers, ONGC, Axis Bank, Tech Mahindra, Infosys and ICICI Bank were among the laggards. NSE Nifty advanced 82.75 points or 0.73 per cent to settle at 11,470.25.
FutureBrand, which is a global brand transformation company, said part of Reliance's success could be attributed to Mukesh Ambani's recasting of the firm as a one-stop-shop for Indians.
"RCOM and MTN have agreed to continue their negotiations in relation to such potential business combination, and have extended the period of exclusivity until July 21," RCOM said. "It is to be noted that there is no certainty either on completion, or the timing of the said proposal," the statement added.
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