Money Ki Baat: Telecom Sector Sees 10 Per Cent Revenue Drop In June Quarter

India’s telecom sector has seen a 10 per cent drop in its gross revenues in the June quarter, according to a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report, Livemint has reported.

The gross revenue and licence fee paid to the government by telecom companies has dropped to Rs 58,401 crore and Rs 2,929 crore respectively compared to last year during the same period. The gross revenue of the telecom sector has been on the decline, largely after having reached the peak of Rs 73,344.66 crore in April-June 2016.

“Gross revenue (GR) and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of the telecom service sector for the quarter ending June 2018 has been Rs 58,401 crore and Rs 36,552 crore, respectively,” TRAI’s Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicator report said.

This seems to be the result of the new entrant in the telecom sector, Reliance Jio. The January 2018 subscriber data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) shows that Mukesh Ambani’s Jio gained 8.3 million subscribers while its main rivals – Airtel and Vodafone-Idea – added less than four million between themselves.

As pointed out in an earlier Swarajya article, the rest of the industry is growing at less than half the absolute rate of Jio, and even slower in percentage terms since their growth is on a larger base.