The majority of the country's telecom operators, including the market leader Bharti Airtel, lost their share of the revenue market to Idea Cellular, Vodafone and the state-run telecom operators BSNL and MTNL during the quarter ended March.
According to the data released by the sectoral regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai), the industry revenue grew at a sluggish pace of 2.9% to Rs 38,803 crore at the end of March, an increase of Rs 1,082 crore from the quarter ending December when it had recorded Rs 37,731 crore in aggregate revenue.
Buoyed by an 8.5% growth in the voice traffic over its network, the Aditya Birla Group's Idea Cellular gained 90 basis points to earn 15.7% of the total revenue generated in the mobile telephony market during the quarter. It was followed by Vodafone that gained 50 basis points contributing 22.9% of the total revenue.
However, the country's largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel, after a blip in the second quarter, continued to see erosion in its revenue market share which slid another 40 basis points during the January-March period. Reliance Communications's market share fell 10 basis points to 7.8% during the quarter, while Tata Teleservices saw a dip of 30 basis points to settle at an 8.2% market share.
Other operators that together conceded one percentage point market share were Aircel, Uninor, BPL, HFCL, Shyam, Etislat and STel.
Explaining that Idea's rising market share was a mix of three reasons, managing director, Himanshu Kapania said, "A whopping 60% of our voice customers are in the high-growth segment of rural India. This segment will continue to grow at a fast pace while our wireless broadband data business is on the rise and data revenue has increased from 5.5% to 6.6% and lastly winning spectrum back in the 7 circles has helped perception."
"Idea has been doing well for a while now. They have been big gainers of mobile number portability, along with Vodafone, and have been heavily focusing on services as well as operations," Romal Shetty of KPMG said, explaining the reasons for Idea's growth.
"The company has been focusing on trying to poach high value customers and they befitted tremendously when some telecom operators were forced to shut down operations in the past few months," he added.
However, speaking on Airtel's performance, he said: "The company might take some more time before it can begin arresting its market share, especially when it is undergoing top management restructuring."
Gopal Vittal, recently took over as chief executive of Bharti's India operations from April. Airtel had reported a net profit of Rs 509 crore for the quarter on revenue of Rs 20,488 crore.
Airtel loses revenue share to Idea, Vodafone in Q1: Trai - The Times of India
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According to the data released by the sectoral regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai), the industry revenue grew at a sluggish pace of 2.9% to Rs 38,803 crore at the end of March, an increase of Rs 1,082 crore from the quarter ending December when it had recorded Rs 37,731 crore in aggregate revenue.
Buoyed by an 8.5% growth in the voice traffic over its network, the Aditya Birla Group's Idea Cellular gained 90 basis points to earn 15.7% of the total revenue generated in the mobile telephony market during the quarter. It was followed by Vodafone that gained 50 basis points contributing 22.9% of the total revenue.
However, the country's largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel, after a blip in the second quarter, continued to see erosion in its revenue market share which slid another 40 basis points during the January-March period. Reliance Communications's market share fell 10 basis points to 7.8% during the quarter, while Tata Teleservices saw a dip of 30 basis points to settle at an 8.2% market share.
Other operators that together conceded one percentage point market share were Aircel, Uninor, BPL, HFCL, Shyam, Etislat and STel.
Explaining that Idea's rising market share was a mix of three reasons, managing director, Himanshu Kapania said, "A whopping 60% of our voice customers are in the high-growth segment of rural India. This segment will continue to grow at a fast pace while our wireless broadband data business is on the rise and data revenue has increased from 5.5% to 6.6% and lastly winning spectrum back in the 7 circles has helped perception."
"Idea has been doing well for a while now. They have been big gainers of mobile number portability, along with Vodafone, and have been heavily focusing on services as well as operations," Romal Shetty of KPMG said, explaining the reasons for Idea's growth.
"The company has been focusing on trying to poach high value customers and they befitted tremendously when some telecom operators were forced to shut down operations in the past few months," he added.
However, speaking on Airtel's performance, he said: "The company might take some more time before it can begin arresting its market share, especially when it is undergoing top management restructuring."
Gopal Vittal, recently took over as chief executive of Bharti's India operations from April. Airtel had reported a net profit of Rs 509 crore for the quarter on revenue of Rs 20,488 crore.
Airtel loses revenue share to Idea, Vodafone in Q1: Trai - The Times of India
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