After sharing the subscriber addition numbers for Idea Cellular & Bharti Airtel for the period from May'16 to October'16 in my 2 previous reports, now it's time to share the comparative numbers for India's No.2 Mobile operator: Vodafone India. Going by the subscribers addition
progress reported by Vodafone over the mentioned 5 months period, it looks highly unlikely that the operator will be able to hold on to the No.2 position for long. At the end of May'16, Vodafone's Total subscriber base was about 23 million more than Idea Cellular's. The gap is down to about 16.5 million by the end of October'16. During the same period, Vodafone's lead in VLR base is down from 7.5 million to just about 4 million. At this pace Idea Cellular is likely to topple Vodafone from the No.2 spot (atleast in VLR base terms) sometime in the next 3 to 6 months time. Vodafone certainly needs to do something aggressive to hold on to it's Ranking.
Vodafone added about 1.5 million subscribers in the 3 months prior to JWO launch, while it's Total subscriber base increased by 1.7 million in the 2 months post JWO launch. Both the numbers are just mediocre. Even on the VLR base front, Vodafone's increase was just 0.62 million & 1.59 million for the two periods, again quite lacklustre compared to the numbers posted by Idea Cellular & Bharti Airtel. Vodafone's VLR base increased by 1.95 million in October'16 alone. Now it remains to be seen if it is one-off jump or whether the operator manages to post similar improvement in following months as well.
Circle-wise Performance: The Circle-wise numbers for Vodafone's VLR base changes for pre-JWO & post-JWO periods throws a lot of interesting facts. The first thing that is obvious is that Vodafone's struggle for increase in VLR subscribers started during the pre-JWO months itself and has continued in the post-JWO months in almost all circles. The 6 circles of Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, UP(E) & (W) and West Bengal, together helped increase Vodafone's VLR base by 2.17 million during the 2 post-JWO months, whereas the operator's All-India VLR increase was just 1.59 million for the same period. That means the remaining 16 circles together posted negative VLR base change number. Delhi circle alone saw Vodafone's VLR base drop by 0.64 million during those 2 months, wiping out more than what it had gained in the 3 pre-JWO months. Delhi is an important circle for Vodafone as it holds about 28% Revenue market share there.
Except for the 7 circles I have mentioned above, the VLR base change numbers for most of the other circles are not even worth talking about. Vodafone has traditionally been a very strong player in all the Metro circles (including Tamil Nadu) and Gujarat, UP(E) and West Bengal. Apart from the last 2, Vodafone has clearly shown signs of immense struggle to maintain it's VLR base steady in the face of stiff competition. Amongst the Top-3 operators, Vodafone was the last one to make a move towards introducing 4G services. Hence it is now paying it's price. Vodafone was also the highest spending player in the most recent Spectrum Auctions. But despite the huge purchases, Vodafone still has the weakest 4G spectrum portfolio amongst the Top-3 operators. Vodafone spent a substantial portion on acquiring spectrum in the 2500 MHz Band in several circles. None of the existing 4G services in India are operational on this band and hence the number of handsets supporting this band are very limited currently. The operator will have to push handset manufacturers to introduce more models supporting this band to gain any traction in the 4G space in many circles. Apart from the spectrum band issue, Vodafone also does not have the ability to offer 3G/4G services on it's own in all 22 circles. This is where Idea Cellular did the smart thing as it now possesses the ability to offer 3G and/or 4G service on it's own in all 22 circles, with ability to offer both services in 15 circles. I sometimes wonder about the strategy adopted by Vodafone during the Spectrum Auctions.
The top management at Vodafone India has been talking about consolidation more often than others, which is adding fuel to the rumours about it's intention to merge with another large operator in India. A potential (rumoured) Merger with Idea Cellular is something that deserves some discussion. If at all these 2 operators decide to merge operations in India, it will create India's largest mobile operator, both in terms of subscriber base as well as Revenues. But there is a hitch. Their combined market share in a few circles might be in excess of 50% currently, because of which DoT & TRAI will not allow the merger in current situation. But the same could become a possibility a couple of quarters later when Reliance Jio might have grabbed some decent market share, pulling down the combined market share of Vodafone & Idea to within permissible limits. Apart from Idea Cellular, there are other easy targets for Vodafone India to acquire or merge. Namely Telenor India and Tata Teleservices. Rumours are already flying high about a potential acquisition of Telenor India by Bharti Airtel. If it does fructify, the latter will just extend it's lead over others by a couple of percentage points. Let's see how things progress on the M&A front in the coming months.
Tags:
#Vodafone #VodafoneIndia #BeSuper #Airtel #Idea4G #GetanIdea #Jio4G #RelJio #Jio
Vodafone added about 1.5 million subscribers in the 3 months prior to JWO launch, while it's Total subscriber base increased by 1.7 million in the 2 months post JWO launch. Both the numbers are just mediocre. Even on the VLR base front, Vodafone's increase was just 0.62 million & 1.59 million for the two periods, again quite lacklustre compared to the numbers posted by Idea Cellular & Bharti Airtel. Vodafone's VLR base increased by 1.95 million in October'16 alone. Now it remains to be seen if it is one-off jump or whether the operator manages to post similar improvement in following months as well.
Except for the 7 circles I have mentioned above, the VLR base change numbers for most of the other circles are not even worth talking about. Vodafone has traditionally been a very strong player in all the Metro circles (including Tamil Nadu) and Gujarat, UP(E) and West Bengal. Apart from the last 2, Vodafone has clearly shown signs of immense struggle to maintain it's VLR base steady in the face of stiff competition. Amongst the Top-3 operators, Vodafone was the last one to make a move towards introducing 4G services. Hence it is now paying it's price. Vodafone was also the highest spending player in the most recent Spectrum Auctions. But despite the huge purchases, Vodafone still has the weakest 4G spectrum portfolio amongst the Top-3 operators. Vodafone spent a substantial portion on acquiring spectrum in the 2500 MHz Band in several circles. None of the existing 4G services in India are operational on this band and hence the number of handsets supporting this band are very limited currently. The operator will have to push handset manufacturers to introduce more models supporting this band to gain any traction in the 4G space in many circles. Apart from the spectrum band issue, Vodafone also does not have the ability to offer 3G/4G services on it's own in all 22 circles. This is where Idea Cellular did the smart thing as it now possesses the ability to offer 3G and/or 4G service on it's own in all 22 circles, with ability to offer both services in 15 circles. I sometimes wonder about the strategy adopted by Vodafone during the Spectrum Auctions.
The top management at Vodafone India has been talking about consolidation more often than others, which is adding fuel to the rumours about it's intention to merge with another large operator in India. A potential (rumoured) Merger with Idea Cellular is something that deserves some discussion. If at all these 2 operators decide to merge operations in India, it will create India's largest mobile operator, both in terms of subscriber base as well as Revenues. But there is a hitch. Their combined market share in a few circles might be in excess of 50% currently, because of which DoT & TRAI will not allow the merger in current situation. But the same could become a possibility a couple of quarters later when Reliance Jio might have grabbed some decent market share, pulling down the combined market share of Vodafone & Idea to within permissible limits. Apart from Idea Cellular, there are other easy targets for Vodafone India to acquire or merge. Namely Telenor India and Tata Teleservices. Rumours are already flying high about a potential acquisition of Telenor India by Bharti Airtel. If it does fructify, the latter will just extend it's lead over others by a couple of percentage points. Let's see how things progress on the M&A front in the coming months.
Tags:
#Vodafone #VodafoneIndia #BeSuper #Airtel #Idea4G #GetanIdea #Jio4G #RelJio #Jio
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