In big bang reforms, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a relief package for the telecom sector that includes a four-year moratorium on payment of statutory dues by telecom companies as well as allowing 100 per cent foreign investment through the automatic route. Briefing reporters on the decisions taken by the Cabinet, Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said nine structural reforms for the telecom sector were approved. The definition of AGR, which had been a major reason for the stress in the sector, has been rationalised by excluding non-telecom revenue of telecom companies.
Debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea on Thursday reported widening of losses to Rs 7,675 crore in the March quarter amid rise in interest and financing cost. The company had registered a loss of Rs 6,419 crore in the year-ago period. The consolidated revenue of operations remained almost flat about Rs 10,607 crore during the reported quarter.
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal on Thursday said he had reached out to Vodafone's Nick Read after bold telecom reforms were announced by the government and will also speak to RIL's Mukesh Ambani, as the telecom czar vowed to take the lead in bringing the industry together to unleash India's telecom dream. Mittal exhorted the industry to collaborate in areas such as infrastructure sharing to reduce costs but vehemently ruled out possibility of any cartelisation among players. Amid reports of its potential tie-ups with handset makers to counter Jio's upcoming ultra low-cost smartphone, Mittal said Airtel is in a state of "readiness" on an affordable smartphone "should a need arise".
Launched in March, it triggers re-verification of suspected fraudulent numbers. Failing re-verification, the number will be disconnected.
18% cent GST on iPhones continues to weigh heavily on the final cost to Indian consumers, limiting the impact of price cuts.
The incumbents Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea recorded adjusted gross revenue of Rs 10,701.5 crore and Rs 9,808.92 crore, respectively, during the quarter.
Among the Sensex pack, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, IndusInd Bank, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India and Titan were the biggest laggards. Larsen & Toubro, Infosys, HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies and Tata Steel were the biggest gainers.
A lot of the 100-day programmes would be 'milestone-based' with timelines for achieving targets for social-sector schemes.
'The noise that we are hearing is because the five big IT players are not hiring significantly.'
The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the Centre and telecom companies for doing self-assessment or reassessment of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues fixed by the apex court in its verdict given on October 24 last year. The top court, which was also anguished by frequently published newspaper articles on the AGR issue, said all managing directors of telecom companies will be personally responsible and held for contempt of court for any such future write-ups hiding the truth.
Reliance Industries Ltd, whose offering of rock-bottom tariffs shook up the telecom industry, is looking to repeat the feat in the green energy business, where its billionaire chairman Mukesh Ambani sees promise to outshine all existing growth engines in 5-7 years. Having pledged Rs 6 lakh crore on green energy, Ambani says RIL will scale up investments in this business which will start going live in the next 12 months. "Over the next 12 months our investments across the Green Energy value chain will gradually start going live, scaling up over the next couple of years," Ambani, chairman and managing director of RIL, said in the company's latest annual report.
Ratan Tata: A Life, the much awaited biography, reveals that after a year of 'parallel running', Tata began having second thoughts about Cyrus Mistry's 'suitability'. 'Mistry targeted Ratan, the man who had elevated him from virtual oblivion into the mainstream of the Tatas...'
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal on Thursday said tariffs need to go up amid "tremendous stress" in the telecom sector, and Airtel will not hesitate to raise prices, but it will not do so unilaterally. The comments by the telecom czar came at a time when Airtel's rival Vodafone Idea has approached the government for a one-year moratorium on payment of spectrum instalment of over Rs 8,200 crore - due in April 2022. Cash-strapped VIL has told the telecom department that while it is working on raising new funding for the last six months, "investors are not willing to invest in the company because they believe that unless there is a significant improvement in consumer tariffs, the health of the industry will not recover and they will incur a loss on their investment".
Keeping surplus money in a bank account has become perilous, alerts Harsh Roongta.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Tuesday posted a 31 per cent drop in consolidated profit to Rs 2,072 crore in the March quarter mainly due to devaluation of the Nigerian Naira. The company had registered a profit of Rs 3,005.6 crore in the year-ago period. The consolidated revenue of operations increased 4.4 per cent to Rs 37,599.1 crore during the quarter under review from Rs 36,009 crore a year earlier.
The Modi government's flagship initiative 'Make in India' launched 10 years ago has helped the country boost exports, push investments and promote manufacturing. Under the initiative, launched on September 25, 2014, a series of measures have been taken by the government to boost local manufacturing. These initiatives include the rollout of production linked incentive (PLI) schemes for 14 sectors, easing foreign direct investment (FDI) norms, reducing compliance burden to improve business climate, all approvals through single window, and rolling out of the national logistics policy.
The government has given an option to telcos to pay back interest on dues through equity and also conveyed that it has no interest in acquiring any telecom company, a top official of debt-ridden Vodafone Idea has said. Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) managing director and CEO Ravinder Takkar in an interview to PTI said it is clear that the government wants the company to compete in the market and there should be at least three private service providers in the telecom sector. "I have had many many interactions across various parts of the government leading up to this announcement (telecom reforms).
Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani on Thursday said his oil-to-telecom-and-retail conglomerate is not seeking short-term profit but is in the business of creating wealth for the nation. Speaking at the company's annual shareholder meeting, he said all businesses of Reliance Industries Ltd continue to be key drivers of the Indian economy and have become a success story. "We are not in the business of pursuing short-term profit and hoarding wealth. "We are in the business of creating wealth for India," he said.
When on October 24, the Supreme Court, on a petition moved by the government, ordered payment of past dues according to its new definition of AGR, the country's second-biggest carrier Vodafone-Idea Ltd warned of shut down if no relief is given. The total dues for the industry ran into a whopping Rs 1.47 lakh crore. For an industry that has come from 7-8 operators to just three private players and state-owned fourth operator, the warning by Vodafone-Idea sounded like a death knell.
From the 30 Sensex pack, State Bank of India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, Titan, HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank and Bajaj Finance were the biggest laggards. JSW Steel, Tech Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, Hindustan Unilever, HCL Technologies and Reliance Industries were among the gainers from the pack.
This move is seen as part of efforts to strengthen China's ties with Pakistan and safeguard Chinese investments in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, particularly related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
'There will be 200 ITIs developed as hubs, while 800 will be developed as spoke, connected with five National Skill Training Institutes.'
The news of Dixon Technologies (India)'s tie-up with HP in addition to its existing Lenovo and Acer partnerships has led to a 5 per cent stock uptick since the start of the week. Dixon can target roughly 60 per cent of India's addressable IT hardware market with these contracts. Dixon targets Rs 48,000 crore in revenue from IT hardware under the PLI scheme over the next six years.
The telecom industry, he said, is vital to the nation and the digital agenda of the government.
Life has come full circle for Nobel laureate Professor Mohammad Yunus, who faced persecution during Sheikh Hasina's regime for embezzlement, is now all set to head of the interim government in Bangladesh after she resigned and fled the country.
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal has expressed hope that the government and regulators will step in to ensure the sector remains a viable place for continued investments and asserted that the industry requires "long overdue" support to maintain its current 3+1 structure. In the latest annual report of Airtel, Mittal said as the sector's role in the economy becomes more pervasive, its challenges loom larger. Issues such as unsustainable pricing and low returns in a highly capital-intensive environment, coupled with legacy legal issues, "have extracted their toll", Mittal observed.
"There is a limit when it comes to tolerating abusive behaviour or working styles. Many (employees) find ways to quit," says career coach and rediffGURU Pradeep Pramanik.
Institutional shareholders of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) are expecting big-ticket announcements from the company, including timeline for listing of its telecom and retail subsidiaries. They expect this to unlock value in the company, which has seen a sharp fall in market valuation on Friday. This is due to windfall tax imposed by the Centre on refiners and oil producers.
Given the high priority accorded to the manufacturing sector, several policy initiatives around the theme of Atmanirbhar Bharat have been set in motion to address its competitiveness and growth. Some notable examples include the PLI scheme and the employment-linked incentive scheme announced in the recent Union Budget. The Budget also announced the setting up of 12 industrial parks under the National Industrial Corridor Development Programme (NICDP).
The value of private equity (PE)-backed mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in India reached a six-year low during the first seven months of the current calendar year, amid ongoing global uncertainties. The total value of these deals stood at $6.2 billion during the period, down from $9 billion in the same period last year, and lower than the $14 billion recorded during the corresponding period in 2019, according to data from LSEG Deals Intelligence. PE funds pool capital from investors, including high-net-worth individuals, to invest in high-return opportunities.
Domestic institutional investors pumped Rs 2.3 trillion into equities during H1 CY24. Of this, mutual funds contributed 80%.
Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea will roll out revised mobile service tariffs increasing rates in the range of 10-24 per cent from the first week of July. Bharti Airtel announced a 10-21 per cent hike in prepaid and postpaid mobile tariffs from July 3, a day after larger rival Reliance Jio announced an increase in rates. Later in the day, loss-making telecom operator Vodafone Idea (Vi) also announced its plan to raise mobile tariffs by 11-24 per cent from July 4.
'A possible post-election growth momentum may be lost.'
Tech giant Microsoft regained the top spot in the list of best employers to work for in India in 2024, followed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Amazon, according to a Randstad Employer Brand Research report released on Wednesday. Microsoft had topped the list in 2022, but slipped to fifth in 2023. The 2024 list is based on responses from 3,507 people.
The government is considering the option of handing over operations of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) to BSNL through an agreement, instead of pursuing a merger route, a source privy to the development said. A final call on this is likely to be taken in a month's time. The source said the option of handing over debt-laden MTNL's operations to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) through an agreement is being looked into.
Fear of a recession in the US due to rising unemployment has added to the concerns of India's IT services sector, which was seeing some growth returning after Q1FY25 results. The Nifty IT closed 3.26 per cent down, as major IT services companies' stock value fell. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest IT services firm, saw its stock price fall 4 per cent during intraday trading.
In a setback to telecom service providers, the Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Centre's plea to recover adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of about Rs 92,000 crore from them.
Vodafone Idea's (Vi's) subscriber loss reduced to a seven-month low in March, and alongside the company added 1.1 million broadband users after two months of net loss -- two things analysts have noted as key trends that need to be monitored. While Vi has been losing customers for more than two and a half years now, the churn reduced to below a million after five straight months in March, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) data has shown. "Jio's softer than usual subscriber growth in March, and VIL's slowing subscriber market share loss are key trends to keep an eye on going forward," global investment banking and financial services major UBS said in an analyst note.
Analysts have pointed out that with the dues arising out of the SC judgment there could soon be only two private telcos in the country, and not three - Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea - as now.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) on Tuesday postponed the spectrum auction by 19 days to June 25, as per information available on its website. According to amendments made in the notice inviting applications for bids on Tuesday, the new date for "start of the live auction" has been changed to June 25 from June 6. The government will auction eight spectrum bands for mobile phone services at a base price of about Rs 96,317 crore.
