by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Interviews
Gopal Vittal
By Aparajita Gupta,
Gurugram : With fierce ongoing battle in the telecom sector, which is making telecom companies’ balance sheet bleed, Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel feels that pricing level and ARPU have reached rock bottom and now can only move up.
“I think we have hit the bottom in terms of ARPUs (average revenue per user) and pricing. I think both have to lift from here and given this industry structure it will lift. At the end of the day, we want a profitable and sustainable market share,” Vittal told IANS in an interview here on Tuesday.
The company’s ARPU as of March quarter was at Rs 116.
The telecom services provider, which is present in 15 African countries also plans to launch its initial public offering (IPO) by 2019. “We are looking at an IPO in Africa…full Africa as a whole. We haven’t decided on the bourse yet,” he said.
He said the Indian telecom sector, which was an eight-player market some time back, has now rapidly converged to become a three to four payer market including BSNL.
“We have 1.3 billion customers to serve and there are three private players. You can’t ask for better industry structure than this. At present, Vodafone-Idea has 39-40 per cent of revenue market share, Airtel 33 per cent and Jio little over 20 per cent. In my view, in not so distant future you will have three equal-sized players.”
Asked about its strategy to stay ahead in this highly competitive sector, Vittal said: “Our vision is to use the network to enrich the lives of our customers. There are three big strategic pillars. First pillar is strengthening our networks. We have invested Rs 24,000 crore in 2017-18 and same figure we are investing this year. We have tripled our network footprint. We are putting in a lot of investment in home broadband. We are also investing in automation network.”
Second pillar is simplification and digitisation. “Our calls in the call centres have fallen by 60-70 per cent,” he said.
Airtel has created the “home platform” for converged billing across mobile, direct-to-home (DTH) and home broadband. “We have launched it in Andhra Pradesh and we are taking it national this quarter.”
He said the third leg of strategy was to use the customer base of 300 million to build “a suite of digital services and non-wireless services.”
In the digital services area, the company is building “digital brain” platform called Customer 360 and this is going to be the repository of all information of customers and intelligence about them. It will help offer the right mix to the right customer.
Airtel had been the front-runner in 4G technology in the country. Asked about the company’s plan in 5G, Vittal said: “We are keen to get the ecosystem going. We are keeping our eyes and ears open. We would love to participate in the auction of 5G spectrum as and when the eco-system is ready.”
Saying that 5G is a different type of technology, Vittal added that it will change the world. “It gives better speed, but beyond the point of smartphones, you don’t need more speeds. It gives lower latency, which is needed for robotics surgery and driverless cars. We have done (5G) trials in our labs in Manesar. We have seen the power of what it can actually do,” he said.
Talking about Airtel Payments Bank that ran into rough weather due to some Aadhaar-related e-KYC issues, Vittal said the role of the bank was to serve India well, to foster financial inclusion.
“The bank had started off very well, but we got into regulatory issues. We are working very closely with authorities (RBI and UIDAI) and hopefully this will be back to business soon and start acquiring customers. Right now have 30 million customers in the bank and the wallet. Operation is continuing for existing customers, but we are not acquiring new customers,” Vittal said.
Regarding the rising concerns about privacy issues across the globe, Vittal said telcos around the world respect privacy because customers trust telcos with everything about their data. “It is in our business model to respect privacy,” he added.
(Aparajita Gupta can be contacted at aparajita.g@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Economy, Emerging Businesses, Markets, News
New Delhi : The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Monday approved the merger of Bharti Airtel with the Indian unit of Norwegian telecom major Telenor India, a notice said here.
The notification said DoT has transferred all licences and liabilities of Telenor India to Bharti Airtel.
The notification said: “The present merger is taken on record without prejudice to the rights, contentions, remedies and steps which may be taken by the Department, in pursuance of any subsequent orders of any orders, judgements and decisions of Hon’ble Courts/Tribunals in related matters” pending in the Bombay High Court, TDSAT and Supreme Court.”
The DoT’s notification came after the Supreme Court last week quashed DoT’s effort to make Bharti Airtel furnish a bank guarantee of Rs 1,499 crore as a pre-condition to approving the Telenor India acquisition.
Bharti Airtel had received the approval of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), BSE, National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) and Competition Commission of India for the proposed merger with Telenor (India) in June last year.
Airtel had announced on February 23, 2017 that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Telenor South Asia Investments. As part of the scheme, Airtel will acquire Telenor India’s running operations in seven circles – Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West) and Assam.
“These circles represent a high population concentration and therefore offer a high potential for growth. The proposed acquisition will include transfer of all of Telenor India’s assets and customers, further augmenting Airtel’s overall customer base and network,” the telecom major said in a statement earlier.
“It will also enable Airtel to further bolster its strong spectrum footprint in these seven circles, with the addition of 43.4 MHz spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band,” it added.
During the acquisition announcement the deal was estimated to be in the range of Rs 1,800 crore-Rs 2,000 crore by industry sources.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz
New Delhi : Shashi Arora, CEO and Managing Director of Airtel Payments Bank, has stepped down, the company announced on Friday – nearly a week after the Unique Identification Authority of India, (UIDAI) suspended its Aadhaar linked e-KYC services because of alleged misuse.
“Shashi Arora has been associated with Airtel in senior leadership roles since 2006. He has been an asset for Airtel and over the years has contributed to the company’s growth story,” Airtel said in a statement here on Friday, without mentioning the suspension. Airtel’s e-KYC facility was partly restored by UIDAI on Thursday.
“Having led the operations in key telecom circles followed by building a strong DTH (direct-to-home) business, he has laid the foundation for Airtel’s Payments Bank operations. Shashi has decided to move on to pursue opportunities outside of Airtel. We wish Shashi the very best for his future endeavours,” the statement added.
The company is yet to name Arora’s successor.
The UIDAI’s interim order on December 16 had come after some customers of the telecom major alleged that the company had, without their consent, opened their bank account in Airtel Payments Bank when they used the “Aadhaar linked e-KYC services”.
The Aadhaar-linked e-KYC service of UIDAI provides an instant, electronic, non-repudiable proof of identity and proof of address along with date of birth and gender, resident’s mobile number and email address to the service provider.
It was alleged that at the time of mobile verification using Aadhaar e-KYC, the Airtel retailers were also opening Airtel Payments Bank accounts without “informed consent” of the customers.
Even LPG subsidy by the government was also getting transferred to these Airtel Payments Bank accounts, without the knowledge of the customers.
Following the suspension of licence, Bharti Airtel was reported to have deposited a penalty of Rs 2.5 crore with the UIDAI for alleged violation of rules on using Aadhaar-based e-KYC services. The payments bank was also reported to have returned the subsidy amount credited to its customers’ accounts.
On Thursday, Airtel was allowed to use Aadhaar to verify its mobile phone customers till January 10. However, the company’s e-KYC key remains suspended till UIDAI gets a final report on the probe it has ordered into the misuse.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Large Enterprise
Mumbai : The S&P BSE telecom index zoomed higher on Monday — after taking a plunge of over 3 per cent during opening trade — driven by telecom stocks like Bharti Airtel and manufacturers of telecommunication equipment and optical fibre cables like Himachal Futuristic Communications (HFCL).
The telecom index took to an upward rally as counting trends indicated a victory for the BJP in both the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections.
At 1.15 p.m., the index rose by 1.53 per cent, riding on the certainty that the ruling BJP was set to retain power in Gujarat. In Himachal Pradesh, the BJP was set to wrest power from the Congress.
Stocks of Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Idea Cellular — which initially plunged almost 6 per cent following an early beating taken by the key BSE Sensex index — traded higher during the mid-afternoon session.
Telecom giant Bharti Airtel, which dipped to a low of Rs 485 per share — down 6.54 per cent from its previous close — during initial trade, rose by 1.96 per cent to trade at Rs 529 per scrip.
Other telecom players which showed an upward trend were Idea Cellular (up 1.70 per cent at Rs 95.55 per share), Reliance Communications (up 0.17 per cent at Rs 11.8), and Tata Communications (up 0.14 per cent at Rs 688.45).
Manufacturers of telecommunication equipment and optical fibre cables like HFCL and Vindhya Telelinks traded on a bullish note on the BSE market breadth.
HFCL traded higher by 2.28 per cent at Rs 29.10, while Vindhya Telelinks edged higher by 1.80 per cent to Rs 1,340.
Around the same time, the barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE traded at 33,670.57 points — up 207.60 points or 0.62 per cent, while the wider Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) traded higher by 71.35 points or 0.69 per cent at 10,404.60 points.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Technology
New Delhi : The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has temporarily suspended telecom major Bharti Airtel and Airtel Payment Bank’s “Aadhaar linked e-KYC” services, a company statement said on Saturday.
“We can confirm that we have received interim order from the UIDAI regarding temporary suspension of Aadhaar linked e-KYC services till their satisfaction on certain processes relating to Airtel Payment Bank’s onboarding of customers,” the company said in a statement.
“We are engaging with the authority and are hopeful of an early resolution. We are also undertaking to complete the said actions on priority and have commenced thorough checks of our process flows. Being compliant to all guidelines is paramount to us.”
The “Aadhaar linked e-KYC” service of UIDAI provides an instant, electronic, non-repudiable proof of identity and proof of address along with date of birth and gender, resident’s mobile number and email address to the service provider.
Aadhaar authentication and e-KYC services are available to different sectors and government organisations under a license.
Bharti Airtel uses the Aadhaar data base for the purposes of mobile services KYC under a license agreement, while Airtel Payments Bank which is a separate entity is an authorised KYC User Agency (KUA) and Authentication User Agency (AUA) of UIDAI.
—IANS
