Kolkata: The telecom industry recorded a 2.79% sequential growth in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) in the fiscal first quarter of FY23, gaining from the spillover impact of sharp tariff hikes taken by the private carriers last November.
Latest operator performance data put out by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Wednesday showed Bharti Airtel notched up the highest sequential AGR gain in the June quarter, among the three private carriers, with Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea being the other two.
Airtel’s quarterly AGR, or revenue from licenced services, grew 7.1% sequentially to Rs 17,140.56 crore in the April-June period, while Jio and Vi’s rose 4.14% and 2.04% on-quarter to Rs 21,515.88 crore and Rs 7,356.54 crore respectively, Trai data showed.
Overall, the telecom industry AGR rose 2.79% sequentially to Rs 60,530 crore in the fiscal first quarter, FY23.
A higher quarterly AGR translated into higher licence fee and spectrum usage charge (SUC) collections for the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The licence fee mop-up rose 2.79% sequentially to Rs 4,844 crore, while SUC collections rose by 3.79% on-quarter to Rs 1,999 crore.
Telcos annually pay 8% of their AGR as licence fees and around 3-4% towards SUC to the government.
But in late-June, the government scrapped the 3% floor on SUC in a move that will offer relief to telcos as it would sharply reduce their future outflows towards these statutory fees. In fact, going forward, since spectrum acquired from the recent 5G auction onwards won’t attract any SUC, telcos’ overall SUC payout will dip sharply to well below 1% of AGR.
An Airtel executive said India’s second largest telco was testing the waters. “We will see how it goes. If competition reacts, then we will take a call on expanding or else we can always take another direction”.
Overall, sectoral minutes of consumption fell, with the all-India average minutes of usage (MoU) per subscriber per month from wireless services down by 4.38% sequentially to 914 in the quarter ended June, amidst higher rates.Access services contributed 80.95% of total telecom services AGR in the fiscal first quarter, FY23.
Trai’s report on the telecom industry’s fiscal first quarter performance also indicated that monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) from wireless services rose over 5% on-quarter to Rs 133.55.
Trai data also showed the country’s internet user base rose 1.45% sequentially to 836.86 million in the fiscal first quarter. Of this, the wireless and wired internet user bases stood at 808.13 million and 28.73 million respectively.
Airtel’s share grew from 31.66% to 31.80%, while Jio’s grew from 36.48% to 36.66%, latest subscriber data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India showed.
