Bharti Airtel, which acquired the African operations of Zain Telecommunications last year, had a net debt of $13.4 billion at the end of the first quarter of the current financial year.
India's second-largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel on Tuesday reported a net profit of Rs 1,134 crore for the September 2021 quarter, and said it is witnessing strong business momentum with growth in 4G customers and increase in mobile ARPU. This is against a loss (attributable to owners of the parent) of 763.2 crore during the year-ago quarter, the company said in a statement. Its consolidated revenues for the second quarter of FY21 stood at Rs 28,326.4 crore, up 18.8 per cent year-on-year (on a comparable basis) and 13 per cent y-o-y on a reported basis, it added.
Recently, companies like Bharti airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone and Reliance Communications raised tariffs for their services by about 20 per cent in most operating circles.
Jio is in a neck and neck battle with Airtel, which added a similar number of subscribers as Jio in the 15 months from February 2017 to April 2018
Revenue decline has left the operators with little money to service their mostly 3G and partly 4G infrastructure leading to poor data and voice quality.
If Vodafone Idea shuts, a bulk of the high-paying ARPU customers will move to Airtel as Reliance Jio does not have a comprehensive postpaid offering like it, and have aggressively preferred to play in the prepaid market. The bulk of Vodafone Idea customers use 2G phones and only a few of them use data. It will be easier for Airtel to woo these customers as they can shift seamlessly to its 2G network without changing handsets or even SIM cards,
As trade pundits predicted, tariff hikes are going to be slow and steady unlike the domino effect caused in 2009, when even established operators went into a frenzy and slashed tariffs to hold back subscribers.
This will enable security agencies to tap any call, real-time chat and data without help from the operators.
The government on Thursday warned telecom service providers of action if they failed to pass on the benefit of withdrawal of levy to consumers.
Bharti Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal on Wednesday asserted that a large nation like India needs three private players in the telecom sector, and hoped the government would take measures to offer relief to the industry that is facing "serious financial stress". The comments assume significance in the backdrop of Vodafone Idea's desperate struggle to stay afloat. Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla had in June this year offered to hand over the group's stake in debt-laden Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) to the government or any other entity to ensure that the company remains a going concern.
Attempts are being made to balance the need for health of the sector, consumer interest while complying with the Supreme Court order on statutory dues.
During a hearing before the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) last month Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, and government-run BSNL and MTNL agreed to submit the undertaking.
The licensee shall employ only Indian National as Chief Technical officer, Chief Information Security Officer, Nodal executives for handling interception and monitoring cases and System Administrators.
Kapil Sibal, telecom minister, said many companies borrowed heavily to pay for 3G licences late last year. These companies were now facing difficulty in raising resources for the business, upsetting the calculations they had made while bidding aggressively for the licences, he said.
Adjusted gross revenue of telecom operator, earned from telecom services, declined by 2.67 per cent at Rs 34,527.50 crore (Rs 345.27 billion), while the gross revenue decreased by 0.15 per cent at Rs 52,858.39 crore (Rs 528.58 billion) on quarterly basis, the report said.
Top DoT sources said the department was unlikely to go for cancellation of licences, as many of the new operators already had made large investments and had a reasonable presence across the country.
Wipro Technologies has set up a separate group within its Telecom and Product Engineering practice to aggressively tap the opportunities in the telecom service providers' space.
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.
From January 15, callers will have to dial numbers with prefix '0' for making calls from landline to mobile phone. Announcing the decision, the communications ministry said the move would free up sufficient numbering resources for future use, and nearly 2,539 million numbering series are expected to be generated as a result. There will be no change with respect to dialling numbers for fixed-to fixed, mobile-to-fixed, and mobile-to-mobile calls.
Complaint says Singapore Telecommunications sold services illegally in connivance with Bharti and Tata Communications.
Vodafone Idea will gradually lose market share given its weak balance sheet and limited financial flexibility, says Fitch.
Cellular operators across the country are working on a plan to set up a common mobile advertising exchange that will allow companies to advertise on mobile phones, based on their niche requirement of target audiences.
Trai asks telcos to add towers to address call drops.
DoT further clarified that since 2003 as many as 51 new licences were issued prior to January 2008 under the same guidelines on first come first served basis.
The price range of these mobile phones is between Rs 1,750 and Rs 7,000. After Bharti, others have followed the cue. Tata Indicom recently announced a QWERTY phone, which is a co-branded product with Alcatel.
Operators, including Tata Teleservices, have submitted the compliance report for messenger services to the department of telecommunications.
In June this year, Reliance agreed to merge its 50,000 telecom tower portfolio with GTL Infra in a cash-and-stock deal. Post merger, this would have been arguably the largest independent tower platform with an enterprise value of around $11billion.
Companies spend billions of dollars on building brands as it gives a strategic direction and competitive advantage.
The minister said the companies have given representation which is being examined by the DoT before taking a final decision.
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notices to telecom operator Bharti Airtel, GSM lobby COAI and private banks ICICI bank and American Express over unsolicited calls to mobile phones.
Telecom companies are eyeing a piece of the market share where data usage generates a higher amount of revenue, once 3G services are launched later this year.
With BlackBerry makers passing on the buck to telecom operators for monitoring its services, the government has called a meeting of service providers this week to discuss the issue.
Finally, Trai has also said that spectrum can be shared between only two operators, not three.
A high-level meeting will be convened soon to decide on probing the India operations of Chinese Telecom companies -- 'Huawei' and 'ZTE' -- against the backdrop of the US calling the two firms a threat to American national security.
A large migrant population, better law and order situation made the state attractive.
The Government had earlier asked the operators to take security clearance before buying any key telecom gear.
Overall, the credit profiles of players will be supported by healthy balance sheets and liquidity. Prudence in capital and development expenditure, efficient working-capital management, and recent equity raising will help sustain credit metrics in FY22.
The new "combo vouchers" will enable customers to add value in their mobile phone account as well as avail services at discounted rates.
The government on Friday said telecom companies would be heard before a decision is taken on telecom regulator TRAI's recommendations on spectrum related issues, including levying a one-time charge for excess air waves.
Leading mobile phone operators came down hard on the telecom regulator on a day when most saw their stocks on a crash course.
