Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Monday announced 20-25 per cent tariff hikes for various prepaid offerings, including tariffed voice plans, unlimited voice bundles and data top-ups, and said the new rates will come into effect from November 26. The entry-level tariffed voice plan has been raised by about 25 per cent, while for unlimited voice bundles, the increase in most cases is about 20 per cent. Sunil Mittal led telco -- whose India mobile customer base stood at about 323 million at the last count -- has also increased the tariffs for data top-up plans by about 20-21 per cent
The government on Tuesday invited financial bids from all the nine applicants, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Tata Teleservices and RCom, who had applied for participating in 3G spectrum auction.
Indian Space Association (ISpA) chairman Jayant Patil has said that the executive council will debate whether it can include more telecom companies as founding members. The response came after some leading telcos said that they had been asked to be core members but preferred to be inducted as founding members. The key founders of the ISpA include the Bharti group through two companies (OneWeb and Airtel), L&T, Nelco, Walchandnagar, Alpha Designs and MapmyIndia.
Bharti Airtel boss Sunil Mittal already heads the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Former BPL Mobile boss Rajeev Chandrasekhar is slated to take over as Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) president.
Warid Telecom, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Dhabi Group, offers mobile telecom services with a user base of over 2.9 million in Bangladesh.
Indian CEOs are increasingly finding representation on some of the world's most influential policy bodies.
Among the many exits from the billionaire's club in 2022 are D Uday Kumar Reddy of Tanla Solutions (net worth down 66 per cent), Sushil Kanubhai Shah of Metropolis Healthcare (down 65.7 per cent), Vijay Shekhar Sharma of One97 Communications (down 66 per cent), and C K Birla (down 43.4 per cent).
The Cellular Operators Association of India, the lobby of GSM players, has already petitioned telecom tribunal TDSAT challenging the government's decision to alow dual technology for mobile services and also spectrum allocation norms as suggested by the telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
The Department of Telecommunication and mobile service providers, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance Communications failed to reach a consensus on the spectrum issue during a meeting held on Wednesday. According to sources, Reliance Communications Chairman Anil Ambani raised the issue of extra spectrum being held by GSM operators. He asked how over 6.2 MHz of radio waves have been given to GSM players beyond their contractual agreement.
SoftBank's Founder-Chairman Masayoshi Son has had strong lieutenants in the past who have faded from view in no time.
The Indian industry stands staunchly opposed to job reservations in the private sector, Bharti Group promoter and Confederation of Indian Industry vice-president Sunil Mittal has said as he vowed to fight the move at every fora.
The 50 million customers span mobile, broadband and fixed telephone services, with wireless segment estimated to be contributing as much as 96 per cent (47.99 million) of the total base.
For innovation, Bharti Airtel and ICICI Bank are followed by Infosys, TCS and HCL Technologies in the top five. These are followed by Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications, Wipro, Satyam, M&M and Hindustan Lever (now known as Hindustan Unilever in the order of their rankings.
Vodafone plc has made it clear that it will not make any fresh equity infusion in its Indian telecom business--Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL). Responding to a query, a spokesperson at the UK-headquartered telco said: "Just to confirm our position, there will be no new equity infusion from Vodafone Group." This is the first time that Vodafone has spoken about its stand after the government announced a telecom package.
A top management leadership team from SoftBank has been coming to India in the last few days to meet the founders of start-ups and other investors, signalling the country's emergence as a pivotal market for the global investment giant. Based on current estimates, India accounts for nearly 10 per cent ($20 billion) of SoftBank's invested assets under management (AUM) globally. That makes the country its third largest market after the US and China.
As per the latest data released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Vodafone Idea -- born last year from the merger of older operators Vodafone India and Idea Cellular -- continues to be the largest operator with 38.75 crore consumers and 33.36 per cent market share in the wireless segment as on May 31, 2019.
Nivedita Mookerji explains why a timely rollout of 5G may not be easy in India.
Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communication Ventures Ltd, whose market cap has touched Rs 65,000 crore
Of the 23 Indian billionaires mentioned in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, only one saw a reduction in net worth, with the companies owned by most of them outperforming the Nifty 50 index by a big margin.
The Sunil Mittal led firm accused the regulator of "wrongly" holding Jio's promotional offer as compliant with the regulatory guidelines
There is a scope for 30 per cent reduction in mobile tariffs if the government brings down current taxes on telecom industry, Sunil Mittal, chief managing director, Bharti Enterprises said on Tuesday.
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.
Chiefs of leading telecom firms, including Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel, Anil Ambani of RCom and Vittorio Colao of Vodafone, met Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday and placed their views.
Mukesh Ambani is also a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry.
Not only the common subscribers but even Finance Minister P Chidambaram is also peeved over the way mobile calls drop and wanted to know from the group chairman of the largest cellular operator Bharti Airtel, Sunil Mittal, as to when they would be able to fix the problem. "When will calls not drop in Lutyens' Delhi?," Chidambaram asked Mittal at the NDTV Profit Business Award function on Monday evening.
Non-resident Indian businessman C Sivasankaran's Sterling Infotech group is in talks with the Seychelles government to lease an island for 99 years, on which it plans to build an integrated mega township and tourism project.
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.
The launch of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd last September, particularly the tariff war it has unleashed on its competitors, has deepened the crisis facing India's telecom sector. One offshoot of this is the major drop in earnings reported by industry leaders Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular with each passing quarter. Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com tells the story in numbers.
In an exclusive interview to NDTV Profit, chairman of Bharti Enterprises, Sunil Mittal, hit out at what he called the irrational pricing of spectrum between older and newer players.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India and the United Kingdom are economically made for each other.
People who know Mr Ambani, estimated by Forbes as the world's sixth richest man with a net worth of about $42bn, say the deal is typical of his aggressive style.
The heaviest rocket of the Indian Space Research Organisation -- LVM3-M2/OneWeb India-1 -- blasted off from the Sriharikota spaceport on Sunday to place 36 broadband communication satellites into the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for a UK-based customer.
Discussing the prospect of more reform earlier this month, telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced a delay in the 5G spectrum auction. India's telecom sector regulation has to be benchmarked with the global best, he said. It's another matter that many countries have either introduced or are about to roll out 5G services that will enable cutting-edge tech in diverse areas. For India, too, it will mean a lot for healthcare, robotics and unleashing a new chapter in Digital India perhaps.
The Department of Telecommunications has called a meeting of the heads of all leading telecom companies offering GSM technology services on November 21 to resolve contentious issues that have arisen following recent changes in telecom policy.
The delegation held meetings with the state department and the White House, besides meeting the US corporate leadership, policy makers and think tanks. Prominent among those the delegation met included Jim Steinberg, the Deputy Secretary of State at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of state department.
Micky Jagtiani, owner of Landmark, the unlisted Dubai-based retail chain, has entered the list of 10 richest Indians compiled by Bloomberg.
Easily the biggest high-power gathering and by far the starriest event staged in Gujarat, concluded at the Reliance petro township in Jamnagar on Sunday.
Not too much is known about the middle-aged Arifuddin who is Vavasi's major shareholder, except for the fact that he is a civil engineer from Karnataka and started the group around a decade ago.
