Telecom Services Revenue Rises To Rs 39,123 Crore In April-June

Telecom sector revenue from phone calls, internet and other services rose to Rs 39,123 crore in April-June this year after witnessing a decline in four straight quarters, Trai said in a report on Tuesday. Combined revenue of telecom firms, which provide services to retail customers directly and account for over 73 per cent of sector services revenue, recorded around 11.98 per cent rise to Rs 28,650.28 crore in April-June quarter from Rs 25,585.07 crore in the same period a year ago, as per Trai’s performance indicator report for the quarter ended June 2019.

The growth resulted in a high payout to the government in form licence fees (LF) and spectrum usage charges (SUC). The LF increased by 8.48 percent to Rs 3,133 crore during the reported quarter on year-on-year basis. “Gross Revenue (GR) and Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of telecom service sector for the quarter ended June 2019 has been Rs 61,535 crore and Rs 39,124 crore, respectively. The year-on-year growth in GR and AGR in the quarter ended June 2019 over the same quarter in the last year has been 5.37 and 7.03 percent, respectively,” the report said.

The SUC increased by 9.08 percent on year-on-year basis to Rs 1,121 crore from Rs 1,028 crore. The number of telephone subscribers in India increased by 1.52 percent on year-on-year basis to 118.66 crore at the end of the reported quarter. The monthly average revenue per user for access services, which includes mobile telephony, data etc, increased to Rs 80.66 in April-June compared to Rs 72.49 recorded in Jan-March 2019 quarter.

Among large telecom operators, Reliance Jio reported highest adjusted gross revenue (revenue from the sale of telecom services) of Rs 10,800 crore in the June quarter. However, BSNL registered the highest growth of 27.94 percent from sales of services to Rs 2,598.61 crore on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Bharti Airtel reported 26.15 percent rise in AGR to Rs 7,468.63 crore from 5,920.22 crores, and Vodafone Idea recorded a decline of 5.78 percent to Rs 6,721.06 from Rs 7,133.4 crore in the previous quarter.

Total internet subscribers in the country reached 66.53 crore, which includes 59.43 crore broadband subscribers and 7 crore narrowband (download speed with less than 512 kilobits per second) subscribers, according to the report.―Financial Express