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Tag: airtel

  • Airtel accuses Jio of engineering monopoly

    Airtel accuses Jio of engineering monopoly

    India’s largest operator by subscribers Bharti Airtel has accused disruptive new market entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm of attempting to distort competition and create a monopoly with its proposal to scrap the current interconnect usage charge (IUC).

    At an industry consultation held by telecoms regulator Trai to discuss the future direction of India’s planned new national telecoms policy, Jio called for the current 0.14 rupee IUC to be abolished and replaced with a “bill and keep” regime.

    But the proposal was strongly opposed by incumbent operators including Airtel, with the operator’s chief regulatory officer accusing Jio of attempting to “build its business by getting a free ride on the highways built by Airtel and other operators.”

    He said Jio appears to be attempting to engineer a monopoly situation by unduly burdening the existing operators.

    While Jio accused Airtel of earning excess revenue from the current IUC, Airtel has insisted it is in fact losing 5.5 billion rupees ($85.4 million) per month interconnecting the large volume of calls coming from Jio’s network.

    Jio burst on to the scene last year with a cutthroat promotional offer involving providing free services for a six month period to customers porting to its network. The company now charges for data but plans to keep voice calls free in perpetuity.

    Some Indian MPs, consumer activists and Reliance Jio partner Reliance Communications have also called for the IUC to be scrapped, whereas top operators Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular want the charge to be raised.

  • Airtel to launch VoLTE later this year

    Airtel to launch VoLTE later this year

    India’s Bharti Airtel has announced plans to launch VoLTE services later this year to counter new market entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm.

    Airtel is trialing VoLTE in five cities and plans to become the second operator in the nation after Reliance Jio to launch the technology.

    The launch could potentially allow Airtel to better compete against Reliance Jio’s strategy of offering free voice calls and only charging for data. The entry of Jio into the market has triggered a price war and compelled the nation’s operators to pursue consolidation in response.

    Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal detailed the company’s VoLTE plans at an event announcing the launch of Project Next, its latest initiative aimed at improving the customer experience.

    As part of the new project, Airtel has introduced a data rollover program enabling customers to carry over up to 200GB of data left unused in the previous month.

    The new initiative will also include improvements to the operator’s app, website and in-store experience, including the Family Promise program designed to allow postpaid customers to develop multiple customized plans for each family member over the MyAirtel app, enabling savings of up to 20%.

    Airtel revealed plans to invest up to 20 billion rupees ($309.8 million) on Project Next, and through the program aims to transform into a truly digital service provider.

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  • Bharti Airtel eyes Tata’s assets

    Bharti Airtel eyes Tata’s assets

    India may see a mega merger this year, if reports out of the region are correct. Tata Group has long been seeking a way to reconfigure its capital structure and relieve the pressure of its debt, and they may have found a way to do it with the help of the rival Bharti Enterprises group.

    The two companies are talking about some sort of merger of Bharti Airtel with Tata Teleservices, Tata Communications, and Tata Sky. Now, this would obviously have huge repercussions in the Indian market itself, and the prospect of Tata Communications and its global network infrastructure, top 6 internet backbone, and wholesale/enterprise customer base changing hands is another matter.

    Tata Communications has been a player global consolidation of telecommunications assets on both sides of the table over the years. They have been fixture in the submarine cable business ever since buying the Tyco Global Network and Teleglobe back in 2005. They also bought BitGravity to enter the CDN space back in 2011.

    More recently, the company has been monetizing assets to help with that debt load. Tata sold its South African unit Neotel to Liquid Telecom after a similar deal to sell to Vodacom collapsed. And they sold a majority stake in the company’s data center business to ST Telemedia last year.

    Should a deal happen and these assets land in the hands of Bharti Airtel, it might be that the winds of consolidation shift further. But in which direction is not that clear.

    That being said, it’s still just talk right now and in all likelihood will never be anything else. Until it is, of course.

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  • Airtel beats Jio by active customer adds in March

    Airtel beats Jio by active customer adds in March

    India’s largest operator Bharti Airtel beat out disruptive new entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm in April in terms of active subscriber additions for the first time since Jio launched services last September.

    Analysis from Goldman Sachs finding that Airtel added 2.6 million active subscribers for the month, according to India’s voice location register. This compares to just 400,000 for Jio.

    Data subscriber additions are also starting to increase for Airtel now that Jio is starting to charge for data, and the analysts believe that Jio could continue to face challenges with subscriber growth in the future – Jio’s active VLR additions have now been decelerating for four straight months.

    Jio’s active subscribers as a percentage of total subscribers have also been in decline, falling to only 71% in April, compared to nearly 98% for the market’s top three operators Airtel,  Voafone India and Idea Cellular.

    But the report cites sources close to Jio as stating that the company doesn’t give much significance to VLR figures and stating that its total base of paid customers actually increased by around 8 million during April to over 80 million.

  • Airtel secures approvals for Telenor India merger

    Airtel secures approvals for Telenor India merger

    India’s Bharti Airtel is closer to completing its acquisition of Telenor’s Indian operations, after securing approval for the proposed merger from the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

    In a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Airtel said CCI signed off on the proposed merger on Monday.

    The announcement comes hot on the heels of Airtel also receiving approval  from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited. Airtel and Telenor have also fild a joint application with the New Delhi Bench of the National Company Law Tribunal.

    Airtel arranged in February to acquire Telenor India’s existing operations in seven high-population telecoms circles. The acquisition will include Telenor’s all assets and 44 million customers in the circles, as well as an additional 4.3.4MHz of spectrum in the valuable 1800-MHz band.

    Airtel has also reportedly agreed to take on Telenor India’s outstanding spectrum payments, amounting to around 16.5 billion rupees ($256.1 million) , as well as other financial commitments by way of payment.

    India’s telecoms sector is going through a wave of consolidation triggered by the price war resulting from the entry into the market of Reliance Jio Infocomm.

    Reliance Communications recently announced it has been granted a seven month reprieve to its debt repayment obligations while it completes a planned merger with Aircel, and Vodafone India and Idea Cellular are pursuing a merger that will create India’s largest mobile operator by subscribers.

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  • Airtel to invest $2.5b in India this year

    Airtel to invest $2.5b in India this year

    Bharti Airtel has revealed plans to invest $2.5 billion in India during the current financial year as the company seeks to build out its 4G network to improve its dominant market position.

    During an earnings call for the company’s recent financial results, Airtel revealed it doesn’t plan to let its 71.7% decline in Q4 profit hamper its growth ambitions.

    Airtel plans to continue to focus on acquiring market share despite the impact on ARPU in the short term, Airtel’s CEO for India and South Asia Gopal Vittal said.

    The company’s ARPU shrank to 158 rupees ($2.45) during the fourth quarter from 194 rupees a year earlier, largely as a result of the price war triggered by the entry of Reliance Jio Infocomm to the market.

    Airtel has been strongly opposed to what it called Jio’s “predatory pricing” practices of offering free services as promotions to rapidly attract new users.

    Goppal said India’s smartphone penetration is expected to double in the next three years to up to 700 million, which is set to significantly impact data growth and validate the operator’s decision to focus on market share in the near term.

    Airtel also plans to invest around $500 million this financial year to develop its African operations, the report adds.

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  • Airtel Q4 profit slumps 71.7%

    Airtel Q4 profit slumps 71.7%

    India’s Bharti Airtel has reported a steep 71.7% decline in net profit for its fiscal fourth quarter to 3.73 billion rupees ($57.6 million), as the company felt the effect of competition from newcomer Reliance Jio Infocomm.

    Revenue for the quarter declined 12.1% to 219.35 billion rupees, with revenue from India down 7.1% year-on-year to 170.3 billion rupees.

    Domestic revenue was impacted by a 11.4% year-on-year decline in mobile revenue as a result of intensified competition amid the free offering from Reliance Jio.

    “The sustained predatory pricing by the new operator has led to a decline in revenue growth for the second quarter in a row. The telecom industry as a whole also witnessed a revenue decline for the first time ever on a full year basis,” Airtel CEO for India and South Asia Gopal Vittal said.

    “The deteriorating health of the industry was compounded by the tsunami of incoming voice traffic from the new operator as a result of which significant investments had to be made just to carry the incoming traffic on our network.”

    While Airtel’s Indian mobile broadband customers increased by 20.5% to 42.7 million, mobile data’s contribution to total revenue declined to 21.5% from 23.3% in the same quarter last year. Airtel’s total mobile customer base in India grew 2.9% to 273.6 million.

    Revenue from Africa grew 2.6% in constant currency terms, with data revenue up 14.5% year-on-year to 157 million, representing 17.7% of total revenue from the continent.

    The company’s Airtel Mobey mobile money service meanwhile increased its customer base to 9 million, increasing the total transaction value over the platform by 35.1% to $4 billion. Airtel’s total Africa subscriber base declined by 0.4% to 80.06 million.

    For the full year, net income declined by 37.5% to 60.77 billion rupees, with revenue down 1.1% to 954.68 billion rupees.

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  • Airtel to buy Tikona Digital’s 4G business

    Airtel to buy Tikona Digital’s 4G business

    India’s Bharti Airtel has arranged to acquire ISP Tikona Digital’s 4G business for around 16 billion rupees ($244.6 million), to help shore up its ability to compete against Reliance Jio and the combined Vodafone-Idea Cellular.

    The company will acquire 4G assets including 20 MHz of 2300-MHz 4G spectrum in five of India’s 22 telecoms circles, as well as 350 existing cell sites in these circles.

    The five circles are Uttar Pradesh East and Uttar Pradesh West, as well as Rajasthan, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

    The merger is expected to fill gaps in Airtel’s spectrum holdings, particularly in the former three circles, and allow the operator to secure a pan-India footprint in the 2300-MHz band.

    This could prove crucial to Airtel’s efforts to stay competitive against disruptive pan-India 4G operator Reliance Jio Infocomm, as well as the entity that will be created with the planned $23 billion merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular – which is expected to overtake Airtel to become the market’s largest operator by subscribers.

    But Airtel could have some hurdles to clear in order to close the deal. Tikona Digital co-founder Rajesh Tiwari is objecting to the deal on the grounds that the companies have not provided details of how the proceeds will be split among shareholders, the report states.

    Tiwari, which owns just over 1% of the ISP, has filed a legal notice seeking to block the deal until he is provided this information.

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  • Airtel to maintain controlling stake in tower arm

    Airtel to maintain controlling stake in tower arm

    India’s Bharti Airtel has called off plans to sell a controlling stake in its infrastructure division Bharti Infratel, but still plans to sell or transfer a minority stake in the company.

    The company’s board decided  in a meeting held this week not to sell a controlling stake in the division for now.

    Instead the company plans to sell or transfer up to 400 million shares in Infratel to either wholly-owned subsidiary Nettle Infrastructure Investments, any other potential investors or both.

    After the transfer Airtel will hold a 50.33% stake in Infratel while Nettle or the new investors will hold 21.63%.

    Bharti Infratel’s portfolio covers around 90,250 towers, the report states. These include the company’s own towers and its share of the assets of independent tower company Indus Towers, which was jointly established in 2007 by Infratel and other Bharti Group members, as well as Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.

    The division reported a 25% increase in net profit to 6.2 billion rupees ($94.5 million) for the December quarter, which compares to a 50% decline in profit for Bharti Airtel.

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  • Sunil Bharti Mittal declares war on roaming

    Sunil Bharti Mittal declares war on roaming

    Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of the GSMA and India’s Bharti Airtel, has called for an end to international roaming charges.

    Speaking on Monday’s morning keynote session at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona, the newly elected GSMA chairman said the telecoms industry has “created a disaster” with high mobile roaming charges and pledged to resolve the issue of punitive roaming rates during his tenure.

    “As the chairman of GSMA, one of the major tasks to mind is to fix the problem of international roaming. The bill shocks are creating a lot of dishonest in the minds of customers,” Mittal said.

    “We have a global network…but very few people are allowed to enjoy it,” he said, noting that consumers turn off their phones or often buy local sim cards to avoid “bill shocks”.

    Mittal said 55% of people in the developed world switch off mobile data while roaming and he estimated 90% of travelers from the emerging markets switch off their mobile data, perhaps even voice when they travel.

    “It is a disaster our industry has created,” he said, adding that telcos should not stop regulators’ attempts to force down roaming rates.

    “What have we done to our industry? This must stop. As we leave this room we are going to shake this system. I can promise you within my term at GSMA, roaming charges and bill shocks will be a thing of the past,” Mittal said.

    Mittal’s comment came on the same day Bharti Airtel announced plans to scrap national roaming charges on call and data from April 1.

    In addition to roaming, Mittal also urged regulators to allow greater consolidation in the telecoms industry to leave it in a “healthier” shape.

    “Governments have got it wrong for too long. Regulators have always felt giving out new licenses means more money for the government and more competition for the customers. It’s quite the contrary,” he said, noting that large countries only need three telecoms service providers while smaller nations could be covered by two operators.

    “One doesn’t want a situation where there are one or two ‘healthy’ operators, while another similar number struggle… You really want a few sustainable solid operators, who can put out the investments that are required to deal with the new technologies, demand for data [and the] speeds that you want.”

    Mittal cited examples from the US and Europe, saying these issues are of concern to the telecoms industry globally.

    “In Africa, again and again when I meet regulators and ministers, they talk about issuing new licenses. The time for a license and 500,000 base stations creating a value is over. You can give as many licenses as you want but please allow consolidation,” he urged.

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  • Airtel profit slumps 54% due to Jio effect

    Airtel profit slumps 54% due to Jio effect

    India’s Bharti Airtel has reported a steep 54% decline in net income for its fiscal third quarter, as the operator grappled with competitive pressure from disruptive new market entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm.

    Profit for the quarter ending in December fell to 5.04 billion rupees ($74.1 million), with revenue staying flat at 233.36 billion rupees.

    Revenues from India grew 1.8% year-on-year, despite a slowdown in mobile revenue growth due to the competition posed by Reliance Jio, which has been offering free voice and data services as a promotional exercise since launching LTE services nationwide in September.

    Mobile data revenues also declined 3% year-on-year to 30.37 billion rupees, despite a 22% increase in mobile broadband customers to 37.7 million.

    “The quarter has seen turbulence due to the continued predatory pricing by a new operator,” Airtel CEO for India and South Asia Gopal Vittal commented.

    “The present termination costs at 14 paise which are well below cost has resulted in a tsunami of minutes terminating into our network. This has led to an unprecedented year on year revenue decline for the [Indian telecoms] industry, pressure on margins and a serious impact on the financial health of the sector.”

    But he noted that despite the competitive pressures, Airtel’s revenue market share in India grew to a record-high 33%. The company’s Indian mobile base also grew 2.3% quarter-on-quarter to 265.85 million.

    Airtel’s other Indian businesses, including digital TV, business services and home broadband, also recorded healthy year-on-year growth.

    African revenues meanwhile grew 6% year-on-year in constant currency terms – the highest in the past nine quarters. Data revenues grew 24% to $153 million, with data customers growing 21.3% and traffic up 91%.

    Airtel CEO for Africa Raghunath Mandava said Africa is now generating positive free cash and is profit before tax positive in constant currency.

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  • Airtel launches India’s first payments bank

    Airtel launches India’s first payments bank

    India’s largest mobile operator Bharti Airtel has launched the nation’s first payments bank in all 29 states, using its extensive network of retail stores as banking points.

    The operator will invest an initial 30 billion rupees ($440.3 million) to develop a pan-India banking network and payments ecosystem for its mobile customers. Customers’ mobile number will serve as their banking numbers.

    At launch, the Airtel Payments Bank will use Airtel’s retail network of around 250,000 stores in all 29 states of India as banking points. This is more than the total number of ATMs currently operating in the country.

    Airtel plans to develop a nationwide digital payments ecosystem consisting of over 5 million merchants. The operator said 1 million are already on board.

    The bank offers an interest rate of 7.25% per annum on deposits in saving accounts, and Airtel mobile customers will receive equivalent talk time for every rupee they deposit at the time of opening a savings account.

    Airtel also rolled out its payments bank app for Android and iOS, accessible via the MyAirtel app.

    “Just like mobile telephony leapfrogged traditional telecom networks to take affordable telecom services deep into the country, Airtel Payments Bank aims to take digital banking services to the unbanked over their mobile phones in a quick and efficient manner. Millions of Indians in rural areas will get their first formal banking experience with Airtel Payments Bank,” Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said.

    “We are fully committed to… Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s call to build a Digital India and lay a strong foundation for India’s transition to a cashless economy. Airtel Payments Bank will invest towards building a vast digital payments ecosystem with millions of merchants, and allow customers to make convenient cashless payments for good and services with their mobile phones.”

  • Indian telcos square off over interconnection rates

    Indian telcos square off over interconnection rates

    Indian operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone are squaring off with Reliance Jio Infocomm and Tata Teleservices in court over regulator Trai’s recent decision to fix interconnection rates.

    Trai recently set interconnection rates at zero for landline to wireless calls and 14 paise ($0.002) per minute for wireless to wireless calls. Airtel and Vodafone subsequently filed a court challenge to this decision.

    Now Reliance Jio and Tata Teleservices have filed court briefs opposing this legal challenge, The Telegraph India reported.

    Incumbent operators Airtel and Vodafone are opposing the order on the grounds that it unfairly penalises larger players. In Vodafone’s court filing in November, the operator said the regulations are illegal, arbitrary and beyond the functions of Trai to implement.

    The operators have also argued that the order is unfair because they should be compensated for rival operators using their infrastructure. Airtel is meanwhile calling on Trai to fix termination rates on a cost-based and work-done basis.

    Reliance Jio is a disruptive newcomer to the market, currently offering services for free as a promotional offer to lure customers from rival networks, while Tata Teleservices is one of the market’s smaller operators.

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  • Airtel close to deal to buy Telenor India

    Airtel close to deal to buy Telenor India

    Bharti Airtel is reportedly in advanced negotiations to buy out Telenor’s Indian operations through a debt acquisition deal. Airtel is planning to take on debt of around 15 billion rupees ($219.6 million) from Telenor by way of payment for the purchase.

    Russian telecoms group Telenor is seeking to exit the Indian market through the deal. According to the source, third-ranked Idea baulked at a deal because the operator did not want to take on additional debt, and had offered equity instead. Telenor had also approached various other operators including Vodafone but had been unable to clinch an agreement.

    While Airtel is reluctant to increase its existing $12.23 billion debt burden, the operator was lured in  by Telenor’s 4G spectrum holdings in seven of India’s 22 telecoms circles.

    The acquisition won’t cover all Telenor’s Indian debts, and the company will have to cover the remainder, the report states.

    Telenor has been considering exiting the Indian market for some time. The operator’s efforts to establish a competitive foothold in the market were dealt a serious blow by the cancellation of its 2G licenses in 2012 as part of a supreme court decision revoking 122 licenses issued under a former telecoms minister’s regime. Telenor India never fully recovered from this setback despite purchasing new licenses in seven circles.

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  • Airtel investing in cable to Myanmar

    Airtel investing in cable to Myanmar

    India’s largest mobile operator Bharti Airtel has announced it is investing in a new fiber cable between India and Myanmar.

    The operator plans to use the new fiber asset to offer end-to-end connectivity solutions in the Myanmar market.

    The 6,500km terrestrial cable will connect to Airtel’s landing stations in Chennai on the east coast and Mumbai on the west.

    Bharti Airtel CEO for global voice and data Ajay Chitkara told the publication that Myanmar is experiencing strong uptake of digital services as one of the last major growth frontiers in Asia, and the company aims to take advantage of that growth by introducing new connectivity services.

    Myanmar liberalized its telecoms sector in 2011, resulting in a rush of foreign entrants into the market and strong subscriber growth and development.

    But Telenor Myanmar, which launched services in September 2014 after securing one of two mobile licenses allocated through a tender process following the opening up of the sector, believes that the market’s hyper growth era has now ended.

    News of the terrestrial cable project came as China Telecom Global and Nepal Telecom announced they have linked China and Nepal through the Himalayas and plan to use the new terrestrial cable to offer IP services to the Nepalese market.

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