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Tag: Bharti Airtel

  • Broadband ops remain with Tata as it sells mobile biz to Airtel; may be merged with DTH

    Broadband ops remain with Tata as it sells mobile biz to Airtel; may be merged with DTH

    MUMBAI: The telecom industry in India, especially the small operators such as Tata Teleservices, has been facing a debilitating price war since Reliance Jio came onto the scene.

    Bharti Airtel is now buying Tata Teleservices’s consumer mobile business in a cash-free, debt-free deal but the latter plans to stay connected with the broadband and landline businesses. The proposed deal will leave out Tata’s enterprise, fixed-line and broadband operations.

    No doubt, consolidation of this kind is common in the western markets — for example, Liberty merged its Netherlands cable TV and broadband business with Vodafone’s mobile services.

    With a subscriber base of 44 million and revenue market share (RMS) of five per cent at June quarter-end, Tata is selling the mobile business to India’s largest telecom operator almost for free as part of the chairman’s plan to exit operations which had been a prolonged drag on group profitability.

    Tata Sons is also in initial stages of exploring a combination of the enterprise business with Tata Communications Ltd and its retail fixed line and broadband business with Tata Sky. Any such transaction will be subject to respective boards and other requisite approvals, the companies said in a statement.

    Airtel’s acquisition of Tata business will give the former spectrum as well as a larger subscriber base so as to vie with Jio and the Idea-Vodafone combine. It will strengthen Airtel’s position as compared to Jio, as the former will get access to 178.5 MHz spectrum (of which 71.3 MHz is “free to trade”) in the 850 MHz , 1,800 MHz and 2,100MHz bands.

    Tata’s enterprise business, which caters to SMEs, could be combined with the listed Tata Communications, which is in a similar space but caters to big corporates.

    Airtel will now absorb Tata’s mobile phone operations across India in 19 circles. On merger, Airtel’s subscriber base is expected to expand to 350 million as against the combined Idea-Vodafone’s projected 390 million. Airtel’s RMS is also expected to reach 40 per cent in September, a little short of the combined 42 per cent of Idea-Vodafone.

    “The acquisition of additional spectrum made an attractive business proposition. It will further strengthen our already solid portfolio and create substantial long-term value for our shareholders given the significant synergies,” Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said in the statement.

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  • ACT to invest Rs 7 bn in wireline infra, Rs 1 bn for Delhi

    MUMBAI: Atria Convergence Technologies, India’s third largest wired broadband services firm after BSNL (9.80 million subscribers) and Bharti Airtel (2.09 million), plans to invest up to Rs 7 billion this year to expand its presence and infrastructure across India, which will be funded through internal accruals and debt.

    The Bengaluru-based company, which has a presence in 11 cities, has been seeking to enter 3-4 cities and also expand presence in regions such as Delhi-NCR, PTI reported.

    ACT CEO Bala Malladi said that it was not about just setting up base in a city…the investment would include establishing infrastructure and also maintenance. Malladi said they were looking at strengthening their presence in the Delhi market and would also be expanding to Gurugram as there were good opportunities in these geographies, adding that the average data consumption on its network in Delhi was already higher compared to other cities. He added that ACT will invest Rs 1 billion over the next 24 months to expand its presence in the Delhi region.

    ACT, which started operations in Delhi some few months ago, has a crucial scale in cities such as Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai. It had a turnover of Rs 13 billion at the end of March 2017. Of the 18 million wired broadband subscribers in India, ACT had 1.2 million subscribers in May 2017.

    The company had started its operations in the year 2000 as a cable TV service provider supported by investments from private equity firms TA Associates and True North.

    Malladi ruled out any impact on its business after the entry of players such as Reliance Jio, which offered affordable data plans. He said that wired broadband users typically had high consumption. The lowest speed ACT offered was 20 Mbps.

    Also Read: High-speed data services & on-demand bandwidth expectation prompt new telecom policy

    Broadband subs growth slows further, wireline broadband loses subs

    ACT still leads in wired sub addition, Idea & BSNL lose wireless subs

  • Jio to raise Rs 200 bn for next phase of expansion

    MUMBAI: Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) is planning to raise Rs 200 billion through a rights issue of OCPS (optionally convertible preference shares). Jio will raise the amount through the rights issue of shares to shareholders as Reliance Industries’ wholly-owned subsidiary is reading for the next phase of expansion.

    RIL is now expected to reveal Jio’s next significant move – an inexpensive 4G feature phone supporting Voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology.

    The OCPS fund-raising would take the total raised by Jio through this route to around Rs 900 billion in the last two years. In the March quarter, Jio’s capital expenditure was Rs 180 billion, and this would stay the same in the subsequent three-month period, the company stated. Jio pocketed around 117 million users, or around nine per cent active subscriber market share as of May end, according to TRAI data.

    RIL has already invested around Rs 2000 billion in Jio, which started commercial operations in September 2016.

    To take on competition, incumbent operators have also ramped up investments. As in March 2017, Bharti Airtel, Idea and Vodafone India respectively invested Rs 2300 billion, Rs 1250 billion and Rs 1350 billion.

  • Airtel lists 32.7 mn paperless Aadhar-based acquisitions in ‘Sustainability Report’

    MUMBAI: Bharti Airtel (Airtel), India’s largest telecommunications company, has released its 2017 India Sustainability Report that outlines its approach towards responsible, sustainable business practices and making a positive impact on all stakeholders including customers, suppliers, local communities, investors, employees and government bodies.

    Bharti Airtel MD & CEO (India & south Asia) Gopal Vittal said, “As part of our governance DNA, we attach a deep sense of purpose to the way we conduct our business and ensure it has a positive impact on all stakeholders. Being a responsible corporate citizen, we have implemented a host of sustainability initiatives across the organization and remain fully committed to building on this strong foundation.”

    Green Initiatives

    81% reduction in CO2 emissions across network infrastructure in the last five years and 27% reduction in the last financial year.
    23% reduction in CO2 emissions per square feet in our facility and 9% reduction in CO2 emissions per rack in data centre operations against 2015-16
    Airtel saved over 1280 million sheets of paper since FY 2011-12 on paperless billing initiatives.
    Adopted Aadhar based instant verification process which is secure and eliminates paperwork
    Managed to recycle 2400 tonnes of e-waste and refurbished over 500,000 direct-to-home set top boxes
    Over 1200 tonnes of paper have been saved since FY 2011-12 with the paperless billing initiative, over 170 millions have opted for e-bills. 191 tonnes of paper was saved across facilities

    Adopted Aadhar based instant verification process which is secure and eliminates paperwork. 32.7 million such paperless Aadhar based acquisitions were completed last year.

    Customer Initiatives

    Unveiled India’s first Open Network, setting a new benchmark for transparency in the industry, by making the entire network information including coverage, site details and signal strength available to customers.
    Doubled mobiles sites in just two years by deploying 180,000 sites. This is the same number deployed over the past 20 years.
    Self-regulation: Airtel will contribute INR 100,000 for every 0.01% increase in call drop rate beyond 1.5% / month against the TRAI prescribed limit of 2%. The amount will be contributed towards education of the under privileged.

    Listening to customers through various touch points – stores, customer care, website and social media. There is 74% increase in online interactions and 10 million social media queries were answered last year.

    Community Initiatives

    The company supports over 254 Satya Bharti School Program, Learning Centers and Quality Support Program through its educational initiatives and benefitted over 43,500 underprivileged children in rural India, impacting over 198,000 underprivileged children cumulatively.

    Benefitted over 3.8 million farmers through the IFFCO-Kisan Sanchar Ltd by undertaking mobile based agriculture awareness Implemented a host of initiatives in the field of disaster relief management, environment protection and other social causes

    Other key interventions

    Deployed a ‘Win with people’ strategy. To help talent grow through strong learning, mentoring and succession planning, started conducting Career Fairs. Over 370 hours of training interventions with over 935,000 man hours of training delivered in FY 2016-17

    Launched Airtel Payments Bank, the first payments bank in India, further consolidating the government’s agenda of digital payments and financial inclusion.

    Enabled over 1000 villages to go cashless across India, through enabling Airtel Payments Bank accounts with over 250000 banking points and onboarding merchants who accept digital payments

  • Broadband subs growth slows further, wireline broadband loses subs

    BENGALURU: The growth of broadband subscribers has been slowing over the past few months. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India data for the month of May 2017 (as on 31 May 2017) indicates that wireless internet subscribers increased by just 0.22 percent in May-17 to 272.85 million from 265.43 million in April 2017. Top five broadband internet service providers constituted 88.23 percent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of May-17. These service providers were Reliance JioInfocom Ltd (117.34 million), Bharti Airtel (53.30 million), Vodafone (40.43 million), Idea Cellular (24.63 million) and BSNL (21.59 million).

    As on 31 May, 2017, the top five Wireless Broadband Service providers were Reliance JioInfocomm Ltd or Jio (117.34 million), Bharti Airtel (51.21 million), Vodafone (40.42 million), Idea Cellular (24.63 million) and Reliance Communications (14.46 million). Month-on-Month (MoM) growth in May-17 as compared to April-17 was:

    Please refer to the figures below:

    public://111111111111111_0.jpg

    Overall growth of mobile broadband subscribers in May-17 with respect to April-17 was: 3.12 percent; Jiogrew by 4.2 percent; Airtel grew by 2.07 percent; Vodafone by 1.69 percent; Idea Cellular by 2.24 percent and Reliance Communications grew by 3.29 percent. The upside of the growth numbers was that both Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications witnessed positive subscriber growth in May-17 as opposed to de-growth in the previous month (April-17) as compared to March-17.

    public://22222222222222_1.jpg

    In the meantime, wired broadband internet subscribers declined 0.11 percent in May-17 to 18.23 million from 18.25 million in April-17. As on 31 May, 2017, the top five Wired Broadband Service providers were BSNL (9.80 million), Bharti Airtel (2.09 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (1.20 million), MTNL (0.99 million) and You Broadband (0.64 million). Among the top 5 wired broadband internet service providers the government run providers – Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited (MTNL) lost subscribers, Airtel saw no change, while the minnows ACT and You Broadband both gained subscribers in May17 as compared to April 17

    public://33333333333.jpg

    In CY-17 until May-17, ACT has added the largest number of wired internet subscribers at 80,000, followed by Airtel with 50,000 additions. You BB added 40,000 subscribers, while BSNL lost 150,000 and MTNL lost 50,000 subscribers during the same period.

    Notes: (1) The Indian numbering system or the Vedic numbering system has been used at some places in this paper/charts to denote numerical values. The basic conversion to the international norm would be:
    (a) 100,00,000 = 100 lakh = 10,000,000 = 10 million = 1 crore.
    (b) 10,000 lakh = 100 crore = 1 arab = 1 billion.

    (2) TRAI reports indicate data in millions of numbers up to 2 decimal places. Hence it is assumed in this report that a figure of 0.51 million (5.1 lakh) subscribers for You BB for Dec-2015 would be granular to the nearest 10,000. While percentages have been mentioned up to two decimal places, the accuracy may vary, depending upon the exact number.
     (3) MSOs’ have a number of subsidiaries and alliances, hence broadband numbers are split as applicable. The consolidated subscription numbers of these entities could be larger. Hathway is a case in point.

     

  • DTH subscriber addition disappointing in calendar 2016

    BENGALURU: The carriage industry — more specifically the direct-to-home or DTH industry — has had a disappointing calendar year 2016 (CY-16) going by data provided by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in the first edition of its Yearly Performance Indicator Report of the Indian Telecom Sector for  2016 (IR-2016). This was mentioned by indiantelevision.com earlier after some players declared their results for fiscal and fourth quarter ended 31 March 2017. (FY-17 and Q4-17).

    Substantiating our findings, the TRAI report says that in CY-16 the registered DTH subscriber base grew only 14.45 percent from 84.8 million in CY-15 to 97.05 million in CY-16. A further downside was that the active subscriber base grew just 11.91 percent to 62.65 million in CY-16 from 55.98 million in CY-15. In absolute numbers this means that a little more than half (54.45 percent) of the registered suppliers (12.25million) added were active suppliers (6.67 million).

    The DTH industry had expected to grab a substantial percentage of the analogue cable subscribers from DAS Phase IV, – the sunset date for which had been extended by the government to 31 March 2017 from the earlier date of 31 December 2017.

    Please refer to the figure below for the market share of the six private pay DTH players in India. According to TRAI data, these three players had a 68 percent share of the private DTH market. Besides the six private pay DTH players, Doordarshan’s (DD) FreeDish DTH service  is a major player and is the largest DTH player by far in terms of subscribers with an estimated 15 million or 1.5 crore subscribers in 2015 as per the KPMG-FICCI Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2016 (KPMG-FICCI M&E Report 2016) titled The Future: Now streaming. It must however be noted that an exact number for registered or active subscribers is not available even with DD, since this is a free DTH service.

    public://1111111111111111.jpg

    Of the 6.67 million active DTH subscribers added by the industry, 4.65 million (69.72 percent) were added by three major DTH players whose information is available in the public domain. They are Bharti Airtel’s digital TV services or Airtel DTH, Dish TV and Videocon DTH.

    DAS was a huge opportunity for all the players in the television carriage ecosystem – in phase IV alone, this meant about 42 million analogue cable television homes. It is quite obvious from TRAI data that the industry has failed to do so. The DTH players could capitalize on just about 16 percent of this opportunity. And despite the extension of the sunset date to 31 March, 2017, DTH subscriber growth has slowed down even further, if one were to go by the subscribers added by the three big players mentioned above in the fourth financial quarter (1 January 2017 to 31 March 2017) – the three added a shade above half a million subscribers combined in Q4-17. Please refer to the figure below for the subscriber addition data by the three major players.

    public://22222222222222222222222.jpg

    In FY-16 (year ended 31 March 2016) , the three players had added about 65 percent more subscribers in absolute numbers at 4.93 million as compared to the 3.81 million added in FY-17 (year ended 31 March 2017).The DTH industry witnessed a slowdown in subscriber growth even in the previous financial year. Combined subscriber additions for the annual period ended 31 March 2016 (FY-16) vis-à-vis the previous year (FY-15) grew by 14.8 percent of the three pay-direct to home operators in India.  This subscriber growth rate was however a little less than half that these entities had in FY-15 at 24.7 percent as compared to FY-14.

    Also Read :

    DTH subscriber growth slows down even further

    Active DTH subscriber growth subdued in Oct-Dec’16 quarter

    The growth of DTH in India

     

  • ACT still leads in wired sub addition, Idea & BSNL lose wireless subs

    BENGALURU: Atria Convergence Technologies Pvt. Ltd (ACT) continued to lead in wired broadband internet subscribers additions in calendar year 2017 (CY-17) until 30April 2017 (Apr-17) as per data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). ACT added 70,000 subscribers, of which 20,000 were added inApril 2017 followed by Indian telecom major Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel) and You Broadband which added 10,000 subscribers each during the same period.

    The MukeshDhirubhaiAmbani led Reliance Industries Limited juggernaut Reliance JioInfocom Limited (Jio) continued as the company with the largest wireless broadband internet subscriber base in the country – all of it being wireless so far. Having overtaken the incumbent biggest wireless broad band internet player until Oct-16, Airtel, Jio had a subscriber base of 112.55 million (1125.5 lakh) in Apr-17. Its peers in the wireless internet space – Idea and BSNLbled subscribers. Idea Cellular lost 2.95 million (29.5 lakh) subscribers in the month of April 2017, while BSNL lost 1.22 million (12.2 lakh) subscribers during the same period.

    1.1 lakh (0.11 million) wired broadband internet subscribers were added in CY-17 as per TRAI data. Among the wireline ISP’s,BSNL is the biggest player by far with 99.7 lakh subscribers. BSNL lost 10,000 wired broadband subscribers in CY-17.The second largest wireline ISP in India is Airtel, which closed Apr-17 with 20.9 lakh wireline subscribers, after adding just 10,000 subscribers to its wireline internet subscriber base during Apr-17 and 50,000 in CY-17. The third largest wireline broadband internet services provider was regional private player ACT Broadband with a subscriber base of 11.9 lakh at the end of Apr-18. The government run Mahanagar Sanchar Nigam Limited (MTNL) lost 40,000 subscribers in CY-17 and had a subscriber base of 10 lakh at the end of Apr-17. The fifth player in the list of top five wireline broadband internet service providers in the country is another regional player – You Broadband or You BB. The minnow’s subscriber base grew by 10,000 to 0.63 million (6.3 lakh) in Apr-17 vis-à-vis Mar-17. Please refer to the figure below:

    public://F1_11.jpg

    The wireless broadband internet subscriber basein India in CY-17 grew 22.12 percent (48.07 million) from 217.36million to 265.43million in Apr-17.  It was 251.71 million in Mar-17. During the same period, the wireless broadband subscriber base of the top five service providers grew by 52.09 million, indicating in general that though the overall wireless subscriber base grew,  a number of subscribers switched loyalties and moved to 4 of the 5 top players – (Idea  Cellular has lost subscribers, the other 4 players have gained in CY-2017).

    The top five service wireless internet service providers subscriber base grew 3.44 percent (52.9 million) between Mar-17 and Apr-17. The top five wireless service providers constituted 88.04 percent market share (87.48 percent in Mar-17) of the total broadband subscribers at the end of Apr-17. These service providers were Jio(112.55 million), Airtel (52.25 million), Vodafone (39.76 million), Idea Cellular (24.09 million) and BSNL (21.58 million).

    Please refer to the figure below for subscriber base of top 5 wireless broadband internet service providers:

    public://F2_4.jpg

    Among the top 5 wireless broadband internet services providers in the country, Jio has shown the highest growth. Please refer to the figure below for growth of top 5 wireless broadband internet service providers in the country:

    public://F3.jpg

    Notes: (1) The Indian numbering system or the Vedic numbering system has been used at some places in this paper/charts to denote numerical values. The basic conversion to the international norm would be:
    (a) 100,00,000 = 100 lakh = 10,000,000 = 10 million = 1 crore.
    (b) 10,000 lakh = 100 crore = 1 arab = 1 billion.

    (2) TRAI reports indicate data in millions of numbers up to 2 decimal places. Hence it is assumed in this report that a figure of 0.51 million (5.1 lakh) subscribers for You BB for Dec-2015 would be granular to the nearest 10,000. While percentages have been mentioned up to two decimal places, the accuracy may vary, depending upon the exact number.
     (3) MSOs’ have a number of subsidiaries and alliances, hence broadband numbers are split as applicable. The consolidated subscription numbers of these entities could be larger. Hathway is a case in point.

     

  • Telcos can’t discriminate tariffs in same category

    MUMBAI: Telecom regulator TRAI has directed telecom operators to stop providing discriminatory tariffs to the subscribers of the same category and report all plans to the sector watchdog within seven days of their launch.

    The decision, signed by KaushaI Kishore, advisor (F&EA), comes soon after Reliance Jio’s complaint against other players, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.

    Jio had filed complaint against Bharti Airtel in April saying the telecom major contravened tariff rules by releasing misleading offers and arbitrarily discriminating among its own consumers subscribing to the same plan. Bharti Airtel spokesperson had denied the allegations saying the company was fully complying with all regulatory guidelines, including tariff orders.

    TRAI has now said that all the tariffs offered to the consumers shall be in accordance with the provisions of Telecommunication Tariff Order, 1999 and shall not be discriminatory between the subscribers of the same class and to ensure that every tariff that is offered to a customer is invariably reported to the Authority.

    TRAI said it has the duty to notify in the Official Gazette the rates at which the telecommunication services within India and outside India shall be provided under the TRAI Act, 1997. The Authority may notify different rates for different persons or class of persons for similar telecommunication services and where different rates are flxed.

    The Authority, while adopting the forbearance regime in tariff, has made it mandatory for all the service providers to file their tariffs with TRAI within seven working days from the date of implementation of the said tariff;

    No exception/exemption has been granted for tariff reporting except for bulk customers and, in that case too, it is compulsory for all service providers to provide details about the number of plans and the bulk customers availing them along with a certification, for information and record of the Authority.

  • Netflix to set shop in Mumbai, invest in local content

    MUMBAI: US California-based video streaming service provider Netflix has plans to establish an office in India aimed at stepping up its game in India, according to a National US-India Chamber of Commerce news release. The India office is expected to be based in Mumbai — the company’s fourth in Asia, after Tokyo, Singapore and Taiwan.

    Netflix recently announced that its service will now be available on the DTH platforms of Bharti Airtel and Videocon. It also entered into a carrier billing agreement with Vodafone India.

    Also, the streaming service is planning to invest in making new content for the Indian market, and also come up with new payment platforms, the release stated.

    The NUICC release, citing Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings, said the Mumbai office will be as big as Tokyo within a few years. Hastings added that India had seen the highest growth among all Asian markets for Netflix’s offering, and targets to be among the top five apps on a consumer’s phone.

    Netflix at present has around 94 million users, among which 44 million are outside the US market, according to the NUICC statement.

    The expansion move comes when the company is attempting to be the first to eliminate buffering while at the same time working on technology that enables content to stream at speeds of 100 kbps. Such a move could boost the company in markets like India, the world’s fastest growing smartphone market, where network speeds are among the slowest in the world, the NUICC said.

    Also Read :

    Futureworks implements HDR and ACES

    Amazon Prime subs may get Fire TV device for Rs 1999 this month

    Airtel launches hybrid DTH STB, to have 500+ channels, Netflix & YouTube preloaded

  • Raman Kalra joins PwC India as entertainment & media sector advisory leader

    MUMBAI: Raman Kalra has been hired as partner, PwC India – Entertainment & Media Sector Advisory Leader (and Emerging Technologies Leader). He is responsible for strategy through execution as: Entertainment & Media Sector Advisory Leader & Emerging Technologies Leader responsible for transformation agenda across Industries leveraging digital & new emerging technologies.

    Based in Gurgaon (Haryana), Kalra is an entrepreneur at heart with 24 years of experience in industry and consulting, with a strong track record in conceptualising, growing and managing businesses.

    Mentor & advisor to various start-ups across Digital Media, Education & Advertisement areas, he turned entrepreneur during 2015/16. He worked as Partner/Executive Director with IBM Global Business Services, India/South Asia as Country Head – Media & Entertainment Industry & also Lead Transformation Partner for Bharti Airtel.

    With a strong understanding of the industry domain & technology, Kalra had been acting as the trusted advisor to CxOs at different levels & functions across the industry segments. During his consulting tenure, he has successfully directed & delivered engagements across areas of business growth strategy & transformation, business process consulting, shared services & outsourcing, ERP & other industry focused technologies. Raman also has significant international experience working with diverse global teams in different geographies.

    At PwC, he is also responsible for transformation agenda across Industries leveraging digital & new emerging technologies like IoT, Cognitive Computing/Machine Learning, Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR), Blockchain and Robotics.

    Prior to this assignment, Kalra curated StoreSay, India’s first integrated location based B2B2C marketplace for electronics, gadgets & appliances connecting trusted nearby brick & mortar stores with customers on one hand and with the distributors/manufacturers on the other hand. StoreSay was awarded among the Top 5 finalist in IBM B2C Start-up Star challenge across India in May 2016.