Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and other telecom operators may have to pay the government a whopping Rs 1.42 lakh crore following the Supreme Court order last week that sent shock waves through an industry already grappling with billions of dollars in debt and an intense tariff war to retain customers.
The board of Bharti Airtel approved the rights issue to raise up to Rs 25,000 crore through the issuance of fully paid up shares at a price of Rs 220 per share and to raise an additional Rs 7,000 crore via the foreign currency perpetual bond issue.
The Big Two telecom companies have accelerated their moves towards this next-gen technology, though they have chosen very different routes to getting there.
The revenue for Q1 FY21 came in at Rs 23,939 crore, up 15.4 per cent from year-ago period.
Keeping surplus money in a bank account has become perilous, alerts Harsh Roongta.
Singapore government's sovereign wealth fund Temasek is looking to invest $10 billion in India during the next three years, Ravi Lambah, Temasek's head of India and strategic initiatives, said.
It all began as one of its customers did not want a Muslim representative to resolve a problem. Rather, the customer wanted a Hindu representative to resolve the issue.
Prominent exits by promoters included a Rs 15,300 crore share sale in Indus Tower by Vodafone Plc, a Rs 9,300 crore share sale by the Tata group in Tata Consultancy Services.
SC said 10 per cent of the amount would have to be paid by March 31.
Bharti has been expanding its spectrum portfolio and now owns 4G data across all 22 circles in India
Experts contend that this setback, even if temporary, could put the company at a disadvantage to its competitors in acquiring new customers.
From the Sensex basket, Power Grid, Asian Paints, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, NTPC, Sun Pharma, Mahindra & Mahindra, HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and JSW Steel were among the major gainers. Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank, Wipro, ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank were among the laggards.
Stock markets will be driven by quarterly earnings by index majors, global trends and the RBI's interest rate decision this week after digesting news on budget proposals and US Federal policy outcome, say analysts. The trading activity of foreign investors and the movement of global oil benchmark Brent crude would also dictate trends in equities. "On the domestic front, the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) meeting is scheduled from February 6-8.
Bharti recorded $5 billion liability for past-due AGR fees, but is still completing its self-assessment to determine the final amount.
Among the Sensex firms, Power Grid, IndusInd Bank, Maruti, Wipro, Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Asian Paints, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Industries and UltraTech Cement were the biggest laggards. Hindustan Unilever, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services and Bharti Airtel were the gainers.
The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,183.15 million at the end of May to 1,186.63 million at the end of June.
Unlike Reliance Jio's focus on 4G, it plans to segment the data market based on device prices and spectrum.
Airtel had previously responded to the DoT's order by offering to pay Rs 10,000 crore by February 20 and the remaining before March 17. Airtel owes nearly Rs 35,586 crore, including licence fee and spectrum usage charge, to the government.
It's celebration time for Bharti Airtel, which last week became the third telecom brand in the world to cross the magic 100 million-subscriber mark in a single country. The gap between Airtel and its nearest competitor, Vodafone, is now about 26 million subscribers.
Domestic institutional investors pumped Rs 2.3 trillion into equities during H1 CY24. Of this, mutual funds contributed 80%.
These customers will be unable to meet the lowest recharge requirements for Jio, meaning they will either exit the market or migrate to BSNL/MTNL.
Airtel reported a 19 per cent rise in its ARPU in the March quarter, as it removed the non-paying users from its network.
Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel has become the world's third largest mobile operator with 303 million subscribers.
Stock markets will be driven by domestic inflation data, ongoing quarterly earnings from corporates and global trends this week, analysts said. News flows around the general election would also be tracked by investors, market experts said.
In August 2021, Nick Read, chief executive of Vodafone Plc at the time, did not mince his words while speaking about the India business in an earnings call. Replying to an analyst's question on Vodafone Idea, a venture with the Aditya Birla Group that had piled on huge debts and worrisome losses, Read described it as a highly stressed situation that "they (Vodafone Idea) are trying to navigate... "We, as a group, try to provide them as much practical support as we can, but I want to make it very clear, we are not putting any additional equity into India.''
Firms come out with detailed communiqu for consumers that counter Jio's claims of cheap data
Nilanjan Roy spent 13 years with Bharti Airtel, prior to which he worked for 15 years with Unilever across their global operations.
The company said the capital infusion will help it continue investments in future roll-outs to build large network capacity and create content and technology partnerships
Launched in March, it triggers re-verification of suspected fraudulent numbers. Failing re-verification, the number will be disconnected.
The approval comes few days before the company has to clear statutory liabilities of up to nearly Rs 35,586 crore, of which Rs 21,682 crore is licence fee and another Rs 13,904.01 crore is spectrum dues.
From the Sensex basket, JSW Steel, Tata Steel, UltraTech Cement, NTPC, Larsen & Toubro and HDFC Bank were the major gainers. Titan, Nestle, Bharti Airtel and IndusInd Bank were among the laggards.
Equity investors suffered a massive loss of Rs 31 lakh crore on Tuesday as markets went into a tailspin with the BSE Sensex tumbling nearly 6 per cent as vote counting trends showed the BJP may not have a clear majority in the Lok Sabha polls. Erasing the record-rally of the previous trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex cracked 4,389.73 points or 5.74 per cent to settle at 72,079.05. During the day, the benchmark tanked 6,234.35 points or 8.15 per cent to hit a nearly five-month low of 70,234.43.
In the backdrop of the crisis brewing at Paytm Payments Bank, major fintech companies are ramping up their workforce and inducting new faces in their leadership teams, industry sources said on Wednesday. Users will not be able to add funds to their Paytm Payments Bank Wallet after February 29, though they will still be able to use the services and the existing balance in the wallets, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) diktat. Industry sources said that competitors to Paytm are investing heavily in offline payments while doubling their salesforce.
Telecom service operator Airtel on Thursday urged the government not to charge high fees for allotting 5G spectrum, saying a faster roll out of the next-generation telecommunication network can have more benefits than collecting revenue in upfront cost. Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises which runs the country's second largest telco, said that there are a variety of applications across sectors ranging from healthcare to video interactions, which will make 5G a technology to be introduced as soon as possible. "5G is important and that's why we keep on requesting the government to make the 5G as an enabler for hundreds of things that we develop in the country, to keep the spectrum at affordable pricing, to not load the industry too much," Mittal said at the Times Network India Economic Conclave.
Kotak Mahindra Bank to have a 19.9% stake in the proposed banking venture.
The process of switching off the 3G network has already started with Kolkata in the recent-concluded June quarter. By September, the shutdown will be affected in 6-7 more circles and between December and March the entire 3G network would be shut down.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel unveiled its new logo on Thursday, November 18, and also announced that its subscriber base has crossed the 200 million mark, with nearly 150 million users in the domestic market alone. The company has 40 million users in Africa, while the rest are in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Vodafone Idea and Airtel have made provisions for their liabilities arising from the Supreme Court order in their latest September quarter results.
With this launch, Airtel has now become the only private operator to have network footprints in all the districts of J&K.
Never before has an open and innovative platform like Airtel Zero been on offer that will help drive internet adoption through free usage (and companies and app developers being an equal partner in the process), says Srini Gopalan.
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