Airtel May Have Become No 1. By Revenue Market Share

Bharti Airtel is likely to have regained its top position by revenue market share (RMS) in the March quarter, with Reliance Jio Infocomm estimated to have become the second largest, said analysts, signalling that the reign of Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) at the top by this measure may have lasted less than eight months.

The product of a merger between Vodafone India and Idea Cellular that was completed at the end of August, the telco continues to lead by subscribers, with Airtel in second place, though Jio is closing the gap rapidly, as per Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) data.

“Jio has toppled Vodafone Idea and, in the next three-six months, will come close to Airtel’s expected revenue market share (RMS) of 32-33%,” said Nitin Soni, director of corporate ratings at Fitch Ratings. As per Fitch estimates, Vodafone Idea had about 30% share at March-end, with Airtel and Jio likely at 32% and 31%, respectively. At September end, Vodafone Idea led the market with 32.8% RMS, followed by Airtel at 30.9% and Jio at 26.1%, Trai data showed.

Voda Idea, Bharti losing customers

by the rapid addition of subscribers by the latest entrant and losses at India’s two older telcos, Jio’s RMS in the quarter to December 2018 rose to 29.7%, while that of Vodafone Idea and Airtel fell to 31.4% and 30%, respectively.

The trend has continued, with the market leader shedding customers at a faster pace than Airtel. Vodafone Idea lost 5.78 million customers between January and February, for a user base of 409.37 million, while Airtel lost 49,896 in the same period to 340.31 million users, Trai said. Jio added 7.79 million in the same period and reported a user base of nearly 307 million customers at the end of March. Its rivals and Trai are yet to report March-end numbers.

Vodafone Idea, Jio and Bharti Airtel didn’t respond to queries.

Mukesh Ambani-owned Jio is gaining traction because of its 4G strength, experts said. “The telecom revenue market is now guided by who has the largest share in 4G,” said Rajiv Sharma, co-head of research at SBICap Securities. “Jio has 4G leadership (in terms of coverage) and both Bharti Airtel and Jio are competing neck and neck (for RMS), ahead of their competitor.”

He expects Jio to achieve 39% RMS by March 2021.

US brokerage firm Jefferies expects Jio to touch an RMS level of 45%, or nearly 500 million users, by mid-FY21. “We expect Bharti to retain its No. 2 position and (revenue) market share of around 30%,” it said in a recent report. “We though expect Vodafone Idea market share to fall to 21% in mid-FY21 and 20% in FY22.”

To be sure, a senior analyst with a leading Mumbai-based brokerage said that the Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel would only be able to pull ahead of Vodafone Idea if it were to consolidate Tata Teleservices’ consumer mobility business with itself. Else, Jio is likely to edge ahead and or be on par with Vodafone Idea at around 31% RMS at the end of March 2019 with Airtel “likely to slip a tad behind to third place.”

Vodafone Idea CEO Balesh Sharma recently told ET that the 4G coverage gap had led to it losing subscribers. But he added that the telco is spending Rs 27,000 crore in capex in FY19 and FY20 to close the gap with its rivals, which will help it reverse the RMS trend.―Gadgets Now