Telecom industry AGR falls 1.81% sequentially in April-June period

The adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of the telecom industry decreased 1.81% sequentially to Rs 44,128 crore for the April-June period from Rs 44,940 crore in the January-March quarter, primarily because of a sharp fall in revenue for Vodafone Idea and the state-run BSNL/MTNL. The AGR of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel rose during the same period.

As per data shared by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the access services AGR of Reliance Jio rose 13.64% in the reported period to Rs 15,259.91 crore as compared to Rs 13,428.07 crore in the preceding period. Similarly, Airtel’s AGR from access or mobile services rose by 3.61% to Rs 10,088.46 crore from Rs 9,737 crore.

In contrast, Vodafone Idea’s AGR from access services saw a sharp decline of 25.44% to Rs 5,865.36 crore in the April-June period as compared to Rs 7,866.60 crore in the January-March period. The primary reasons for the decline were loss of subscribers and lack of recharges by 2G customers during the lockdown. Vodafone Idea, which has the highest share of 2G and rural customers, has been consistently losing subscribers over the past many months.

During the April-June period, Vodafone Idea lost 14.06 million wireless subscribers. Though Airtel too lost 11.14 million wireless users in the same period, the company managed to increase its AGR on the back of better paying customers. Airtel has the highest average revenue per user (Arpu) of Rs 162 per month in the telecom industry.

BSNL, which lost 1.56 million wireless customers during the period, saw its access services AGR decrease by 5.89% to Rs 2,140.40 crore from Rs 2,274.32 crore in the preceding period. Similarly, MTNL’s AGR declined by 25.74% to Rs 337.04 crore as compared to Rs 453.89 crore in preceding quarter.

As per Trai, access services contributed 77.79% of the total AGR of telecom services, while the rest was contributed by NLD, ILD and other services.