Bharti Airtel - the New 4G King??!! - Media creating Sensation!!

I was highly surprised to read the headline flashed by ET-Telecom last week saying Bharti Airtel is the new 4G king post the Videocon spectrum deal. The article is so pathetically researched and it's headline is clearly trying to sensationalize the recent development in order to promote Bharti Airtel's position. The article even quotes reports from reputed Brokerages/Research Houses like Goldman Sachs & UBS. I seriously doubt that the reports from these reputed institutions actually meant something like what ET-Telecom's headline suggests.

The article/report also considers the combined paired spectrum volume. Spectrum in 1800 MHz band alongwith that in other bands like 800 MHz, 900 MHz and 2100 MHz are paired frequencies, where spectrum is always allocated in pairings for separate Uplink & Downlink units (FDD technologies). Unlike this, the spectrum in 2300 MHz is unpaired as both Uplink & Downlink can happen on the same frequency unit (TDD technologies). This is unfair comparison as paired units cannot be used on a standalone basis as Uplink frequency cannot be used for Downlink purpose & vice-versa.

For the time being let's focus only on the headline. Is Bharti Airtel truly the new 4G king after the Videocon deal? I tried to collect data on 4G compatible spectrum holdings of both Reliance Jio Infocom and Bharti Airtel to bring to you the true comparison (Hoping that my information sources are correct. :) ). As per information available in public domain, 4G service is currently possible on 3 different frequency bands primarily: 800/850 MHz (FDD), 1800 MHz (FDD) and 2300 MHz (TDD). Only BSNL holds spectrum in 2600 MHz in a few circles, but I am not sure how it plans to use it. BSNL is already shutting down the WiMax service it had launched some years ago.

The table alongside gives circle-wise & band-wise spectrum holdings of Reliance Jio Infocom and Bharti Airtel. I have only considered 4G compatible bands as the question is about who is 4G king. Apart from these bands, Bharti Airtel also holds spectrum in 900 MHz and 2100 MHz bands, which are 3G compatible. RelJio has no holdings in those bands as it's focus is purely on 4G.

RelJio had announced it's entry into Telecom space in 2010 by winning one 20 MHz unit of 2300 MHz band across all 22 circles of the country in the spectrum auction. In the same auction, Bharti Airtel had won 20 MHz unit only in 4 circles in the same band. Later it acquired Qualcomm's spectrum holding in 4 other circles in the same 2300 MHz band to increase it's number to 8. A few months ago it has announced acquisition of Augere's MP circle spectrum and now Bharti Airtel holds 2300 MHz spectrum in 9 circles, which includes the 3 metro circles and a few Category-A circles too. These 9 circles contribute just over 40% of Airtel's AGR. But here RelJio is the clear leader as it holds spectrum in 2300 MHz band across all 22 circles. Still we will have to wait & watch how much of an advantage RelJio has from this spectrum & how it is utilised, as it's a well-known fact that 2300 MHz spectrum does have indoor penetration problem and long distance propagation. Hence it needs installation of many many more BTSes and/or Small-Cells.

When it comes to 800/850 MHz spectrum, RelJio again has a very clear advantage. It has managed to win a 5 MHz unit each in 10 circles in the last auction. RelJio also plans to share/trade for spectrum in this band with Reliance Communications for some or all of the remaining 12 circles where it does not hold it. Details for the same are still not available and hence we cannot consider it currently. There are several operational advantages for this spectrum, exactly the ones which are missing in 2300 MHz band. Long distance propagation and indoor penetration are both excellent for spectrum in 800/850 MHz band. The handsets that Reliance Retail is selling under the LYF brand support this band as well. Soon after launch of RelJio's 4G service, other manufacturers too will start selling handsets with support for this band. Bharti Airtel has no presence in this band. But Airtel does hold 900 MHz spectrum in certain important circles, where it is launching 3G service under the 'Platinum 3G' brand. It will try & use this service to combat RelJio's 4G service in 800/850 MHz band.

Coming to 1800 MHz spectrum band, the fight is much more interesting & crucial too. Bharti Airtel has a minimum of 5 MHz or more quantity in this band in 18 circles (post Videocon deal). RelJio has the same in 16 circles and hence is quite closely matched to Airtel's holding. It is said that an operator needs atleast 5 MHz of contiguous spectrum in this band to offer good quality & capacity for 4G service. In other circles where both operators hold less than 5 MHz or nothing in this band, they will try to win the same in the upcoming auction or via spectrum sharing/trading with other operators.

One important point about the quantity of 1800 MHz spectrum held by Bharti Airtel: It holds quantity substantially more than 5 MHz in about 8 to 10 circles. If it is able to utilize all this spectrum for 4G, it could offer it substantial advantage to Bharti Airtel in those circles in terms of capacity. But we cannot forget the fact that Bharti Airtel also needs to support it's HUGE existing subscriber base, majority of which is still using 2G voice service primarily. Hence Bharti Airtel needs to implement dual-tech hardware on this frequency band to support both existing 2G as well as future 4G subscribers. On the other hand, RelJio does not have any such restrictions and hence can fully utilize it's 1800 MHz spectrum holdings purely for 4G service. Hence, whatever quantity advantage Bharti Airtel holds in the 1800 MHz band, it loses because of the need to cater to the legacy business.

4G Spectrum Gaps: RelJio has 4G spectrum in atleast one of the three bands across all 22 circles. Excluding the circles of Punjab & UP (W), RelJio has 4G spectrum in atleast 2 bands across the remaining 20 circles. In 6 circles, RelJio can offer 4G service in all the 3 bands. In case of Bharti Airtel, it does not hold any/enough quantity of 4G spectrum in any band in 3 circles of Assam, J&K and West Bengal. Bharti Airtel can offer 4G service on 2 spectrum bands in 8 circles. In the remaining 11 circles, Bharti Airtel can offer 4G service on either of the two bands. Isn't it obvious now that even without considering the strong possibility of sharing/trading agreement with RCom, RelJio has a clear advantage over Bharti Airtel when it comes to 4G spectrum holdings.

Now the important question if that of Coverage within these circles. As per media reports & past announcements, RelJio intends to have 80% of the country covered under it's 4G network by the 2nd half of 2016. This will bring RelJio's coverage very close to Bharti Airtel's 2G+3G+4G coverage as of now. If this really turns out to be true later in the year, RelJio will have a very clear advantage in terms of ability to offer high-speed internet access service across maximum areas of the country. On the other hand, Bharti Airtel's 4G coverage alone is lagging far behind with presence in about 400 cities & towns currently. Even in these 400 cities & towns, there are several pockets where the 4G signal is absent & it falls back on it's 3G network. I am sure that Bharti Airtel is working overtime to plug these gaps as well as extend coverage to more & more cities/towns with every passing week. But if RelJio does launch it's service next month, as is widely expected, then Airtel will lose the first mover advantage in thousands of cities/towns across the country. With when Airtel's existing 3G coverage is combined with it's 4G coverage, it may not be able to match RelJio's 4G coverage in the initial few months or quarters. Airtel will certainly try & catch up as soon as possible.

Summary: Any which way one looks at it, RelJio has everything it takes to shake up the market and snatch market share from each & every operator currently operational in the country. Some of the smaller operators may have to shut down their operations due to unviability at some point, if they are not able to merge/consolidate with another operator. Amongst the larger operators, Vodafone India could prove to be the biggest market share loser, followed by Idea Cellular. Both these operators have very little 4G coverage compared to both Bharti Airtel and RelJio. As per my guesstimates, Bharti Airtel could lose the least in terms of market share. This is one company which has been most aggressive in changing it's focus to high-speed wireless broadband as soon as it realised the potential size of the threat from RelJio. I am looking forward to this very interesting market share fight. We will hopefully have some concrete number to discuss a couple of quarters down the line.

Bharti-Videocon Spectrum deal :- Idea's big Loss!!

Idea Cellular came out with an announcement on 16th March that it has cancelled it's Spectrum purchase deal for the two circles of Gujarat & UP (W) from Videocon Telecom. The very next day, i.e. on 17th March, Bharti Airtel sprung a surprise by announcing a deal to buy Videocon Telecom's spectrum in all six circles of UP (E), UP (W), Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh&Chattisgarh. What was a bigger surprise was the price that Bharti Airtel is paying for this acquisition. Compared to the amount of Rs.3310 crores that Idea Cellular had previously agreed to pay Videocon for spectrum in only 2 circles, Bharti Airtel is now getting spectrum in all six circles for just Rs.4428 crores!!

While the price that Idea Cellular had agreed to pay was certainly on the exorbitant side, the price that Bharti Airtel managed to negotiate the deal for seems to be more or less fair value. I am sure that Idea too was trying hard to bargain for a lower price than the one they had initially agreed to pay. On the other hand, some reports suggest that Videocon was trying to convince Idea to buy spectrum in all the six circles as a package, which Idea was not willing to do. Frankly I don't understand the logic behind Idea's decision to NOT Buy the entire package, especially when Videocon was willing to sell it at a price which was just about 33% higher than the price Idea had agreed to pay only for 2 of the 6 circles!! Or maybe Bharti Airtel applied some special Negotiation Skills to convince Videocon to part with it's spectrum at an 'attractive' price.

Coming to other numbers as regards to whom did the six circles matter more, I again think that it's a Big Loss for Idea Cellular. The Six circles in question contribute nearly 37% of Idea Cellular's Total AGR, while it does not have 4G compatible spectrum in 4 of the 6 circles. Idea already has 4G spectrum in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana circles. These two circles contribute around 14.5% of Idea's Total AGR. That means if Idea had acquired spectrum in all 6 circles, then it would have enabled it to offer 4G service in the additional 4 circles, which contribute almost 23% of it's Total AGR and also strengthened it's 4G spectrum holding in 2 circles which are also very important to the company. On the other hand, the six circles contribute around 22.5% of Bharti Airtel's Total AGR and the company is No.1 operator in just 1 of those 6 circles!! Amongst these 6 circles, Airtel is No.1 in only Bihar & it did not have 4G spectrum for this circle as well as 4 of the remaining 5 circles. This acquisition is certainly positive for Bharti Airtel as it will now be able to offer 4G service in 19 out of India's 22 telecom circles. Airtel will now be better able to protect it's revenues from RelJio onslaught and possibly even snatch market share from other operators like Vodafone & Idea Cellular who won't be able to offer 4G service in many of these circles. Ofcourse it will take a few months before Airtel is able to offer 4G service in these circles as it will take time to get regulatory clearances first and then to roll out network infrastructure. But at least it is in a much better position than both Vodafone & Idea Cellular as these two will have to solely rely on their 3G network for most circles to try and protect their revenues.

Indiabulls Housing Finance vs HDFC - David vs Goliath comparison!!

HDFC Ltd is the Big Daddy in the world of Housing Finance and everybody knows that. HDFC, which is an acronym for Housing Development Finance Corporation, has over 4 decades of history and a super-excellent track record of consistent growth & quality of assets. Over the last many years, HDFC has used it's strong Cash Flows & market position to invest in many other business ventures like setting up an Asset Management company (Mutual Fund), Insurance JVs for Life as well as General Insurance, bought stake in certain Real Estate Projects, even started a venture to offer Educational Loans. All these business ventures now constitute nearly 35% of HDFC's consolidated Total Income.

On the other hand, the Indiabulls Group was born just about 15-16 years ago. It's entry into Financing business happened about 3 or 4 years after that. But Indiabulls did not start with Housing Finance in the business of Financing. Initially it was primarily into Business Loans, Personal Loans, Commercial Vehicle Loans, etc. Most of these Loans were high-risk products, but offered higher rates of interest. The Indiabulls Group took a major hit in this business during the 2008-09 economic meltdown phase and then decided to focus more on Housing Finance & Mortgage Loans business from FY'10 onwards. This business carried lower rates of interest, but came with longer business visibility as well as security of being asset-backed. By the time FY'13 was On, the Housing Finance & Mortgage portfolio of the company became over 75% of the company's total Loan Book and hence the company decided to register as a Housing Finance Company. Being a HFC, the company was able to raise resources at lower rate of interest compared to other lenders. During this HFC Registration, the company's name changed from Indiabulls Financial Services Ltd. to Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd. and the shares of the older company were delisted & after a brief period relisted with the new identity during the year 2013.

In the field of Housing Finance, HDFC has nearly 35 extra years of history than Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd. (IbHFL) and hence is no surprise that the former is nearly 5-6 times the latter in every Financial Number terms. So instead of just comparing the respective numbers of the two companies, I decided to see how is the smaller company growing in size compared to the larger one.

The chart alongside shows the progress made by IbHFL's certain important financial numbers in terms of a Percentage of HDFC's corresponding financial numbers for different successive 12-month periods over the last 3 years or so. What that means is, if the Percentage number is improving between two successive periods means that IbHFL has grown faster than HDFC during that period and if the Percentage number remains steady, then it means that both have grown at almost equal pace during that period. I have considered only the Consolidated numbers for both the companies.

One look at the chart and it's very much clear that the Percentage numbers for all the 3 parameters of Total Income, Interest Cost and Net Profit have shown some smart improvement, in stages, between the 12-months period ending March'13 to 12-months period ending December'15. On the Total Income front, IbHFL's Total Income was about 12% in March'13, but has increased to about 17% by December'15. On the Net Profit front too, the numbers have increased from about 19% to almost 24% during the same period. Interest Cost, which forms the biggest cost for any Financier, reflects similar increase as the Net Profit. This clearly shows that during this period over the last 3 years or so, IbHFL has grown substantially faster than HDFC. Yes, IbHFL being much smaller than HDFC, will allow the former to be much more nimble footed. But still we cannot deny the fact that IbHFL has scaled up to a respectable size to be amongst the Top-5 Housing Lenders within a short span of time. IbHFL has also managed to keep a tab on it's Interest Cost and also it's Loan Book is in a good shape. Fortunately, Housing Finance & Mortgage Lending business is relatively safe as it is backed by an asset and hence the quality of Loan Book rarely goes terribly bad, unless the Real Estate market goes in complete doldrums. Thankfully the Indian economy is growing at a decent pace and hence we can safely assume that nothing of that sort is going to happen with the Indian Real Estate market in the near foreseeable future.

Now let's look at the progress made by IbHFL's Market Cap compared to that of HDFC's in Percentage terms over the last 2+ years. At the end of December'13, IbHFL's Market Cap was just about 6% of HDFC's. At that point, the former was clearly way way undervalued. Over the last 2 years or so, IbHFL's stock has smartly outperformed not just HDFC, but most other Financial Sector companies of decent size. Currently, IbHFL's Market Cap is about 15% of HDFC's number, which means it has closed the Huge undervaluation to a good extent. But there is still some more to go as IbHFL's Net Profit forms almost 24% of HDFC's Net Profit as on Dec'15. So even if both the companies are to be assigned equal P/E Ratio, IbHFL's stock needs to move up by another 50% or so before HDFC's stock makes further move higher. In fact I will go to the extent of saying that since IbHFL has been consistently growing faster than HDFC and if it continues to do so in future quarters & years, then it deserves to trade at a P/E Ratio higher than HDFC. Still....let's just say that there is still a substantial scope for outperformance by IbHFL on the Market Cap front in the coming quarters.

IbHFL's stock currently trades at around the Rs.630-640 level and trading at a P/E Ratio of just about 11 or so. If IbHFL continues to grow it's bottomline at near about 20% Y-o-Y in the coming quarters on a consistent basis, then I won't be surprised to see IbHFL's stock trading in 4-digits sometime before the end of 2016 or in early 2017. I very much think that IbHFL certainly deserves it and hopefully the market will give it to Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd someday.

Telecom Market Shares - Trailing-Twelve-Months Performance Check. (God Knows when RelJio will start disturbing it!!)

When I posted my previous report on Telecom Market Shares in the 3rd week of Dec'15, I was expecting RelJio to start commercial operations on 28th Dec'15. But it did not happen. Now we are in the middle of March'16, but still there is no news/signs of launch of RelJio's commercial operations. We now have Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) details for the Quarter ending Dec'15. And possibly we will have even the March'16 Quarterly report without any start of RelJio effect. I will keep tracking the progress closely as I am expecting things to start changing rapidly after RelJio's entry.

In my previous report, I had discussed progress in the Quarterly AGR numbers of all operators. This time I will focus on Trailing-Twelve-Months AGR numbers of only the Top-8 operators, as these operators constitute around 97-98% of both subscribers market share and AGR market share. The analysis of T-T-M numbers gives us a better idea of a trend as individual quarterly fluctuations gets averaged out.

Let's first quickly have a look at the progress in subscriber market shares of the Top-8 operators for the Dec'15 quarter compared to the situation at the end of Dec'14. The Top-3 operators have continued to strengthen their combined market share. But amongst them, Airtel & Idea Cellular are clearly the best performers with a gain of 106 bps each over the last 12 months. On the other hand Vodafone has gained just 23 bps over the same period. Amongst the remaining 5 operators in the list, RCom has lost 128 bps and Tata Tele has lost 100 bps, primarily because both these operators are rapidly phasing out their CDMA mobile operations to be able to use this spectrum purely for Wireless Data operations. The sooner they finish with this phasing out process, the sooner they will be able to use the 800/850 MHz spectrum for 4G services. Telenor has finally crossed the 5% subscriber market share mark on the back of their 'Sabse Sasta' campaign across it's 7 circles of operation, which is a very significant achievement. But thanks to this very campaign, Telenor could remain the poor-man's mobile phone service.

Coming to the AGR numbers, the industry-wide AGR for calendar year 2015 crossed the Rs.1,50,000 crores mark, posting a Y-o-Y growth of 12.2%. The T-T-M AGR now stands at Rs.1,50,692 crores. Amongst the Top-8 operators, the best outperformer was India's No.3 Wireless operators, i.e. Idea Cellular with 23% Y-o-Y growth, followed by No.8 operator Telenor which managed 22.5% Y-o-Y growth. Apart from these two, the only other operator to post better-than-industry growth rate was Bharti Airtel with 14.3% growth. Vodafone reported a growth of 11.9%, which is marginally slower than industry growth rate. Hence while Bharti Airtel & Idea Cellular reported impressive improvements of 0.6% and 1.6% in their respective AGR market shares, Vodafone underperformed with a very marginal 0.1% drop. Since Telenor is much smaller in AGR terms, it's market share improvement was just 0.2%, despite 22.5% growth in AGR. Aircel & Tata Tele too managed some decent growth of around 9.5% each, hence the drop in their AGR market share was also very marginal. The biggest loser, without doubt, was RCom which lost 1.3% from it's AGR market share on the back of 12.7% Y-o-Y de-growth in it's T-T-M AGR numbers.

RCom is rapidly losing it's business and that's probably the reason why it is hurriedly trying to consolidate with Sistema & Aircel. In the Press Releases that RCom has given in recent months about their potential consolidation move, they claim that it will make it India's No.2 operator in terms of subscriber market share. Yes, arithmetically RCom+Sistema+Aircel will have a subscriber market share just ahead of Vodafone as of Dec'15, but the speed at which RCom itself is losing it's subscribers & revenues, I don't think the combined entity will be able to hold that position for long. The situation is much worse on the AGR market share front. The Trio has a AGR market share of just 10.7% on a T-T-M basis, which makes it a distant No.4 in AGR rankings. If BSNL, which currently has 8.8% AGR market share, successfully continues it's resurgence and RCom continues to lose it's revenues, we could see BSNL overtaking the Trio in a year's time.

Bharti Airtel's T-T-M AGR has hit the Rs.45,000 crores mark and a market share of 29.9%. It has posted stronger growth in the last 2 quarters on the back of it's aggressive 3G & 4G network rollout announcements in more & more cities across the country. Idea Cellular's strong AGR growth has brought it significantly closer to Vodafone in AGR stakes. With a wider 4G footprint, Idea Cellular could close the gap further down at a rapid pace and could be within striking distance of overtaking it in a year's time from now.

Amongst the rest of the pack, BSNL is showing promising signs of improved progress over the recent couple of quarters and it's quite obvious from the charts as of now. On the other hand Tata Tele & Aircel are both showing signs of fatigue in their AGR progress. RCom is already on the path of rapid descent as discussed earlier. Telenor badly needs more ammunition or newer weapons to accelerate it's progress. It certainly needs to expand beyond it's limited 7-circles operation and seriously look at offering Wireless Data service, which is going to be the growth driver going forward.

Finally.....I certainly hope that by the time the AGR report on March'16 quarter is out some time in the month of May, we will have something to discuss about RelJio's services & tariff plans.

Bharti Airtel Ltd. - Triple Whammy coming up!!

Even though I am writing this report taking Bharti Airtel's Wireless India business numbers into consideration, the situation is more-or-less similar for most of the existing large telecom operators in the country.

Bharti Airtel is India's largest Wireless operator by quite some margin. The company is not restricted only to India, but the company's Wireless India business contributes nearly 60% of the company's Total Income and a higher proportion of it's consolidated profits. At the end of Dec'15, Bharti Airtel's India mobile customer base stood at a whopping 243.3 million, which is probably larger than the total population of many of the other countries that Bharti Airtel offers it's services in. The customer base has been growing consistently at a healthy pace. In the last 4 quarters alone, Bharti Airtel's India base has grown by 12-13%, which is very healthy considering it's size of operations.

In the chart alongside, the Orange portion represents the 3G Data Customer base, while the blue portion represents the remaining customer base, which will include a small portion of 2G Data customer base. But these customers will be primarily Voice Customers for Bharti Airtel. On the other hand, the 3G Data Customers will be generating both Data as well as some bit of Voice Revenues. Purely in Number terms, Bharti Airtel's Voice Customers have increased from 195 million in Mar'14 to 215 million in Dec'15, i.e. an increase of 20 million in the last 7 quarters. During the same period, the company's 3G Data Customers increased from 10 million to 28 million, i.e. an increase of 18 million customers. Hence in pure number terms, both segments have seen near similar increase over the last 7 quarters.

But here is the interesting part. On one hand Bharti Airtel's Quarterly Data Revenues have shot up over 130% over the last 7 quarters to hit a figure of over Rs.3150 crores in Dec'15, but on the other hand the Non-Data Revenues number has remained around the same level during all these quarters. In fact the Non-Data Revenues number is even threatening to start posting negative Y-o-Y growth now. That means whatever Voice customers the company is adding in the recent quarters, is being nullified by drop in Average Voice Revenues from each customer. While on the Data Revenues front, the Volume of GBs consumed is growing faster than growth in Revenues, primarily because the competitive pressures are gradually bringing down the Rate per MB being charged by operators.

Why the Triple Whammy? -
As we have seen above, the healthy growth in subscriber base is not leading to any growth in Airtel's Voice Revenues, even though there has not been any increase in the number of players in the recent quarters. That means the Voice usage market is around the Saturation mark currently & we may not see any industry-wide growth in this segment for a substantial period of time.

Coming to the Wireless Data business, even though the Revenues are showing healthy Q-o-Q growth currently on the back of even stronger growth in usage, the consistent fall in average Rate per MB clearly suggests that competitive pressures are increasing within the existing 3G/4G operators. And we will be witnessing the entry of Goliath in this very market by the end of this quarter or some time in the next quarter. This new competitor will not just pull some portion of the high-yielding customer base from the existing operators, which could directly result in some bit of drop in Data usage volumes for all existing players, but also force everyone to bring down the Average Rate per MB charged further down by another 30-50% easily. This will certainly pull down the growth momentum in the Data Revenues of almost all existing operators for the initial few quarters, before things start stabilising.

In the above two points, the focus was on Topline growth, which is expected to come under severe pressure once the large new competitor starts to offer it's services on a commercial basis. But there is a third very significant factor which will but pressure on the Bottomlines of all the existing operators, and that is the CAPEX. All existing leading operators are rapidly investing in installing 4G network infrastructure across all their important markets. Bharti Airtel is clearly the leader here with the widest 4G network in commercial operation in India. But things will change once the new competitor comes in with a 4G network coverage that will be match the 2G+3G+4G coverage of almost all existing operators. Hence Bharti Airtel will have to continue spending on CAPEX to extend it's 4G coverage to more & more areas and also acquire 4G capable spectrum in the coming auctions or from other smaller players, for the circles where it currently doesn't have any. While 4G becomes more & more popular in the coming few years, we could see the 2G & 3G infrastructure becoming more & more obsolete and it's usage dropping after the initial few quarters. Some of these operators might be forced to write down on the CAPEX they had incurred on expanding their 2G & 3G networks, if the usage drops to unviable levels.

Summary: The next few quarters are going to be extremely testing times for Bharti Airtel as well as all other existing operators. We will certainly see some of the smaller operators perish during this phase. We will also see attempts to consolidate amongst some of the operators in an effort to try & remain relevant. The business fundamentals of all existing operators are going to worsen substantially over the next few quarters, once RelJio starts operations. We could see stability coming in sometime in the middle of 2017, by when things will be clear about the competitive landscape. All these things will continue to exert pressure on the stock prices of Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and few of the other listed players. Their share prices are already down about 25-40% from their peaks, but they could very well go down by a similar percentage in the coming months as their business fundamentals come under pressure. Be ready for further rough ride.