TRAI announced the Q1FY20 Financial Numbers for all Telecom operators a couple of days back. I have considered the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) numbers for the Top-4 Telecom operators in my analysis. For Q3FY19, Vodafone Idea was No.1 (31.4% Market-share), Bharti Airtel was No.2 (30.7%), Reliance Jio was No.3 (29.2%) and BSNL+MTNL was No.4 (8.7%). Things have changed substantially over the last 2 quarters.
Vodafone Idea was expected to lose some market share as it is undertaking a massive Network Integration exercise since November'2018. This has resulted in Vodafone Idea slipping to No.3 position with 27.2% market share in Q1FY20. Bharti Airtel had lost it's No.2 position during Q4FY19 due to some one-off adjustments. It has now regained the No.2 position with a market share of 29.6%. Reliance Jio has jumped to No.1 position in Q1FY20 with a market share of 30.2%. But all these developments were more or less expected. What is surprising is the fact that BSNL seems to be on a strong comeback. BSNL+MTNL combine had reported an AGR of just Rs.2864 crores in Q3FY19, which jumped to Rs.3546 crores in Q4FY19, which was a Q-o-Q jump of about 24%. BSNL+MTNL combine has managed to post an even stronger Q-o-Q growth in Q1FY20 to improve it's AGR to Rs.4703 crores, which is a jump of almost 33%. This strong growth has resulted in BSNL+MTNL combine's market share improving substantially to 13% in Q1FY20.
If we compare the Q1FY20 numbers with Q3FY19 numbers, Bharti Airtel has managed to increase it's AGR by 5.5%, but lost market share by 1.1%. Vodafone Idea has seen it's AGR dip by 5.5%, resulting in it's market share dropping by 4.2%. Reliance Jio has reported an AGR increase of 13% and a market share increase of 1%. On the other hand, BSNL+MTNL combine has managed to increase it's AGR by 64%, resulting in it's market share increasing by 4.3%. BSNL has managed to post such strong growth entirely on it's own since MTNL's performance continues to be disappointing. It will be interesting to see if BSNL manages to continue to post healthy positive growth in the coming quarters. Over the last few months we have been reading many reports of BSNL delaying salary payments to it's staff due to paucity of funds. Government of India is seriously considering some major boost to BSNL, including handing over of MTNL's operations to BSNL. If this happens soon, BSNL will be able to improve it's services & presence in the 2 important Metro circles of Delhi & Mumbai. This should help to further improve BSNL's quarterly numbers. Let's wait & watch how things pan out in the coming quarters for BSNL.
Coming to Vodafone Idea, the company is expected to improve it's performance from Q2FY20 onwards. It's Network Integration work has progressed well over the previous 2 quarters and the company continues to rapidly Integrate the networks in more & more towers in various circles. Very soon we will see the company increasing it's marketing efforts to spread the word of it's Stronger & Larger Network in several cities across the country. Initially this marketing effort will be more localised, limited to only those cities where the Network Integration work is over and the capacity has been increased. As the company gets closer to achieving the Network Integration work in over 80-85% of it's towers across the country, then we will see Vodafone Idea pushing for large scale advertisements across various mediums. I am expecting this to start before the end of December'2019.
Bharti Airtel & Reliance Jio continue to aggressively market their services across the country & also continue to incrementally increase their coverage & capacity. While Bharti Airtel has started switching off it's 3G network from some locations and utilise that spectrum for 4G service, Reliance Jio is simultaneously working on rolling out it's wireline services on a commercial basis next month. This might reduce some of it's aggression on the wireless front and we could see some slow down in subscriber addition on Reliance Jio's Wireless network in the coming months.
The next data point awaited is the Subscribers data for the month of July'19, which should be released in the 3rd week of next month.
Do Share your thoughts on this report or Views on the points discussed. Awaiting your Comments.
If we compare the Q1FY20 numbers with Q3FY19 numbers, Bharti Airtel has managed to increase it's AGR by 5.5%, but lost market share by 1.1%. Vodafone Idea has seen it's AGR dip by 5.5%, resulting in it's market share dropping by 4.2%. Reliance Jio has reported an AGR increase of 13% and a market share increase of 1%. On the other hand, BSNL+MTNL combine has managed to increase it's AGR by 64%, resulting in it's market share increasing by 4.3%. BSNL has managed to post such strong growth entirely on it's own since MTNL's performance continues to be disappointing. It will be interesting to see if BSNL manages to continue to post healthy positive growth in the coming quarters. Over the last few months we have been reading many reports of BSNL delaying salary payments to it's staff due to paucity of funds. Government of India is seriously considering some major boost to BSNL, including handing over of MTNL's operations to BSNL. If this happens soon, BSNL will be able to improve it's services & presence in the 2 important Metro circles of Delhi & Mumbai. This should help to further improve BSNL's quarterly numbers. Let's wait & watch how things pan out in the coming quarters for BSNL.
Coming to Vodafone Idea, the company is expected to improve it's performance from Q2FY20 onwards. It's Network Integration work has progressed well over the previous 2 quarters and the company continues to rapidly Integrate the networks in more & more towers in various circles. Very soon we will see the company increasing it's marketing efforts to spread the word of it's Stronger & Larger Network in several cities across the country. Initially this marketing effort will be more localised, limited to only those cities where the Network Integration work is over and the capacity has been increased. As the company gets closer to achieving the Network Integration work in over 80-85% of it's towers across the country, then we will see Vodafone Idea pushing for large scale advertisements across various mediums. I am expecting this to start before the end of December'2019.
Bharti Airtel & Reliance Jio continue to aggressively market their services across the country & also continue to incrementally increase their coverage & capacity. While Bharti Airtel has started switching off it's 3G network from some locations and utilise that spectrum for 4G service, Reliance Jio is simultaneously working on rolling out it's wireline services on a commercial basis next month. This might reduce some of it's aggression on the wireless front and we could see some slow down in subscriber addition on Reliance Jio's Wireless network in the coming months.
The next data point awaited is the Subscribers data for the month of July'19, which should be released in the 3rd week of next month.
Do Share your thoughts on this report or Views on the points discussed. Awaiting your Comments.
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