Reliance Jio continues to remain the fastest mobile network: Trai

 

Reliance Jio continues to remain the fastest mobile network, with an average download speed of 19.3 megabits per second (mbps), while Vodafone recorded the highest speed in terms of upload in September, according to the latest data from the telecom regulator.

Jio adds 3.5 million customers in July, Voda Idea loses 3.7 million: Trai

 Reliance Jio continued to expand its subscriber base, adding another 3.55 million users in July, the same month in which Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost 3.72 million users, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai’s) latest data.

Bharti Airtel added a net 3.26 million wireless subscribers during the month.

The number of telephone subscribers in the country rose from 1,160.5 million at the end of June to 1,164 million at the end of July — reflecting a monthly growth rate of 0.3 per cent.

Urban telephone subscription rose from 636.83 million at the end of June to 638.46 million at the end of July. Rural subscription also increased from 523.69 million to 525.54 million during the same period.

The monthly growth rate for urban telephone subscription in July was 0.26 per cent, while that for rural was 0.35 per cent.

At the same time, the number of wireless subscribers also increased by 0.3 per cent. However, in this case, urban growth came in at 0.25 per cent, while rural areas showed a whopping 36 per cent increase.

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According to the report, the current active subscriber base for Bharti Airtel stood at 97 per cent, while it was 89.3 per cent for Vi and 78 per cent for Reliance Jio.

The user base for wired broadband services showed a marginal rise to 20.13 million in July, from pre-Covid levels of 19 million in February. Wireless tele-density in India increased from 84.38 at the end of June to 84.56 at the end of July. While the urban wireless tele-density increased from 133.53 at the end of June to 133.64 at the end of July, for rural it rose from 58.72 to 58.91.

The share of urban and rural wireless subscribers in the total wireless subscriber base stood at 54.25 per cent and 45.75 per cent, respectively, at the end of July.

The overall tele-density increased from 85.85 per cent in June to 86.03 per cent in July. Urban tele-density increased from 137.35 per cent at the end of June to 137.47 per cent at the end of July, while the corresponding figures for rural were 58.96 per cent and 59.14 per cent, respectively. As of July 31, private access service providers held 89.33 per cent market share in the wireless subscriber base, whereas BSNL and MTNL had a market share of only 10.67 per cent.

Rising user base adds colour to Jio Q2 show; net profit up 45% to Rs 990 cr

The Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio’s reported numbers for the September quarter largely in line with Street estimates. Revenues for the quarter rose 33.7 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 12,354 crore.

This was led by a 41 per cent growth in subscribers to 355 million. The pressure on customer realisation — measured by average revenue per user (ARPU) — however, continued. The metric came in at Rs 120, compared to Rs 121, as estimated by analysts. Profit before tax jumped 45 per cent over the year-ago quarter, to Rs 1,540 crore.

Ebidta for the quarter was up 44.6 per cent to Rs 5,166 crore, while Ebidta margins were up over 315 basis points over the year-ago quarter. While most of the costs were broadly in line with what brokerages had estimated, interconnect usage charge (IUC) reduced 37 per cent YoY (23 per cent sequentially) to Rs 654 crore supported by the rising market share of Jio which meant lower outgoing IUC.

The fall was much sharper than analyst estimates, which had pegged it at Rs 851 crore — closer to the June quarter number. "This Rs 652 crore is without the impact of 6 paise (introduced in Q3). It has been decreasing, we are getting bigger, and customers have been on our network for a longer time," said Anshuman Thakur, head (strategy), Jio. The IUC charge will show on the Ebitda next quarter onwards. Strong revenue growth, and lower-than-expected expenses helped the bottom line, which rose 45.4 per cent YoY (11 per cent sequentially) to Rs 990 crore. This was the eighth consecutive profitable quarter for Jio.

Customer engagement improved with higher data usage of 11.7 GB per user a month, compared to 11.4 GB in Q1, the company said. However, on account of seasonality, voice usage per user a month fell to 789 minutes, against 821 minutes in Q1. While ARPU fell more than expected (down 9 per cent YoY and 1.7 per cent sequentially), the management is not very concerned, given the focus remains on market share.

“We are much more focused on creating the digital ecosystem, which means getting more and more customers onto the network,” said Thakur. Jio indicated that gross debt stood at Rs 84,000 crore. The high debt led to a more-than-expected 88 per cent rise in interest costs YoY to Rs 1,871 crore, during the quarter.

Uncertain over IUC regime, Jio to charge for calls to other networks

Reliance Jio on Wednesday said it would charge 6 paise per minute for voice calls made by customer to other networks such as Airtel and Vodafone Idea after indications that call connect charges may not end on December 31 as proposed earlier.

Current customers when they recharge as well those joining the Jio network from Thursday will have to top up with Rs 10 to Rs 100 to pay for interconnect usage charge (IUC). They will, however, get an equivalent amount of free data — 1 GB to 10 GB.

“Jio will provide additional data entitlement of equivalent value based on IUC top-up voucher consumption. This will ensure no increase in tariff for customers,” Jio said.

This will effectively end one of Jio key disruptive strategies — free voice call. But, it will also help the telco save Rs 650 crore in the coming quarter. It had paid Rs 851 crore to Airtel, Vodafone Idea and BSNL last quarter as IUC.

Jio also said this new expense for customers would be a temporary one till telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) decides to abolish the IUC regime.

Sources said Jio was trying to send a message to the regulator — if the IUC regime continues it would not bear the costs. “It is our shareholders’ money that it being paid out. This is purely a regulatory charge that will be offloaded to the customer,” said the source.

Trai in 2017 had slashed the IUC to 6 paise per minute from 14 paise and had said this regime will end by January 2020. But, it has now floated a consultation paper to review whether the regime timeline needs to be extended.

Jio attacked both the regulator as well as incumbent operators and said there was continuing asymmetry between outgoing and incoming calls, with the former being far more than the latter.

This was because other operators had not invested adequately in the 4G network and 73 per cent of the customer base was still dependant on the 2G network.

As the voice tariff on the 2G network was stiff, their customers often made missed calls on the Jio network. Jio customers, paying a lower tariff, called back, leading to more IUC charges for the service provider.

Jio said it got 250-300 million missed calls on its network every month, when it should have been 700 million minutes of incoming calls. Since its launch, Jio said it had paid its rivals Rs 13,500 crore as IUC in the past three years.

Other operators tried to shift the blame back to Jio and said its decision was taken hastily. They said Jio’s decision to reduce ringer time from 45 second to 25 seconds had led to more missed calls on its network. Incumbents have also done that now. Airtel said Trai’s review of IUC was in line with the regulator’s stated position on the matter — it had said the issue would be revisited based on factors such adoption of new technologies (their impact on termination cost) and traffic patterns. “Both these have not materialised. There are still over 400 million 2G customers from the poorest sections of society living in rural areas paying less than Rs 50 per month and who can still not afford to buy a 4G device. Second, there still is significant asymmetry of traffic,” said Airtel.

Vodafone said Jio had made the decision in haste and IUC was not a consumer pricing matter. “The announcement by one of the telecom service providers today to charge for calls made to other service providers to cover the termination charge of IUC is not only an action of undue haste but it also does not bring out the fact that interconnect is a settlement between operators and not a consumer pricing matter,” Vodafone Idea said in a statement.

Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea pay Rs 94 cr towards spectrum dues in Sept

Mobile operators Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea have paid about Rs 94 crore (combined) to the Department of Telecom towards spectrum dues in September, an official source said.

Vodafone Idea has made a payment of Rs 54.52 crore, while the amount paid by Reliance Jio stood at about Rs 39.1 crore, the source added. The payments, which are towards deferred spectrum dues from the telecom companies, came on time.

Email sent to Reliance Jio was unanswered, while Vodafone Idea spokesperson said that the company does not comment on matters that are business as usual.

The government, in March last year, enhanced the number of annual instalments for spectrum payment from 10 to 16 years to provide relief to the debt-laden telecom sector.

But with the sector reeling under acute financial stress, Vodafone Group Chairman Gerard Kleisterlee and CEO Nick Read recently met Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash, as the company sought a two-year moratorium on deferred spectrum payments, and other relief measures from the government.

The British telecom giant asserted that it is focused on the successful integration of business between Vodafone and Idea.

The telecom sector has been battered by falling tariffs, eroding profitability and mounting debt in the face of stiff competition triggered by disruptive offerings of Reliance Jio, owned by Mukesh Ambani.

The industry has been seeking urgent relief measures for the sector, including cut in levies like licence fee and spectrum charges, and release of GST input tax credit locked up with the government.

Jio continues to lead 4G mobile broadband chart in Aug with 21.3 mbps speed

Reliance Jio continued to maintain its lead in 4G mobile broadband chart with an average download speed of 21.3 megabit per second (mbps) in August, according to the latest report published by telecom regulator Trai.

Vodafone, however, maintained lead in terms of upload with 5.5 mbps speed.

The download speed helps users access video online and messages received by them, among others, while upload speed helps users send photo, video and other documents to people online.

Airtel followed Jio with an average download speed of 8.2 mbps, and was followed by Vodafone (7.7 mbps) and Idea Cellular (6.1 mbps) in August.

Though Vodafone and Idea have merged their mobile businesses, Trai measured their performance separately as the integration of networks of both companies is currently on.

In the upload segment, Idea network followed Vodafone with 5.1 mbps speed, and was followed by Jio (4.4 mbps) and Airtel (3.1 mbps).

State-owned firm BSNL, which has been waiting for allocation of 4G spectrum from the government, led the chart in both 3G download and upload average speeds. The network of the public sector telecom firm recorded a 3G download speed of 2.6 mbps and an upload speed of 1.2 mbps. In download speed, BSNL was followed by Idea with 2 mbps, Vodafone 1.8 mbps and Airtel with 1.5 mbps.

In upload, all the private sector firm lagged behind BSNL with Vodafone and Idea being the close competitors at 1.1 mbps 3G upload speed. Airtel 3G network recorded an average upload speed of 0.7 mbps, according to the Trai data.

The average speed is computed by Trai based on the data it collects across India with the help of its MySpeed application on a real-time basis.

Reliance Jio shifts control of optical fibre, tower units to RIIHL trusts

Reliance Jio has transferred control of its fibre and mobile tower units to two infrastructure investment trusts set up by Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Ltd (RIIHL).

The optical fibre cable infrastructure unit, Jio Digital Fibre Private Ltd (JDFPL) has allocated shares worth Rs 500 crore to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL) on March 31, 2019, according to a regulatory filing.

Also, mobile tower unit Reliance Jio Infratel Private Ltd (RJIPL) has allocated shares worth Rs 200 crore to RJIL, it said.

On the same day, Digital Fibre Infrastructure Trust acquired control of JDFPL by purchasing 51 per cent of the equity share capital of JDFPL for Rs 262.65 crore.

Besides, Tower Infrastructure Trust acquired control of RJIPL by purchasing 51 per cent of shares of RJIPL for Rs 109.65 crore, the filing said.

“This will result in significant deleveraging of the consolidated balance sheet of the company as at March 31 2019,” it said.

Both trusts have been set up by RIIHL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RIL as a sponsor, and have been granted the certificate of registration as Infrastructure Investment Trust by market watchdog Sebi.