Heena Sharma Blog

The Bharti Airtel stock was up 9 per cent and hit a fresh all-time high after the company reported a better than expected performance in the March quarter, led by India's wireless segment. The price hikes that came into effect in December resulted in a 14 per cent jump in average revenues per user (ARPU) on a sequential basis. The metric at Rs 154 is the highest in 12 quarters. This helped the company report a 10 per cent uptick in India business and an 8 per cent increase at the consolidated level. India accounts for three-fourths of Bharti’s consolidated revenues. With wireless subscribers almost at the same level as in Q3FY20, revenue growth for the India mobile business on a sequential basis was driven entirely by the increase in ARPUs. Most brokerages had expected a 7-10 per cent sequential growth in ARPUs. Bharti’s wireless segment operational performance was better than Reliance Jio according to analysts at IIFL. Read More

Telecom operator Reliance Jio Infocomm on Monday announced three new plans to address subscribers’ concerns over its decision to raise tariff by 6 paise per minute on calls to rival telecom networks. After the telco imposed an interconnection usage charge (IUC), its customers had been demanding a simple and hassle-fee package so that they did not have to buy top-ups to cover the additional tariff. The newly announced plans — Rs 222, with a validity of one month; Rs 333 with a two-month validity; and Rs 444 with three months’ validity — come with 1,000 minutes of free off-network calls. This is different from Jio’s earlier offer, where it allowed all voice calls free of charge. The new packages come bundled with the 6-paise-per-minute charge imposed on voice calls, so subscribers will not have pay anything additionally. The offer also comes with 2GB of unlimited data per day, plus free SMS and apps. Effectively, the new plans will mean that Jio customers will not have to buy R...

There's no denying the fact that a hike in fuel prices , especially diesel which is a key transportation fuel, affects the prices of groceries making commodities of daily use expensive for the masses. But there's another way that a surge in fuel prices is likely to have an impact on your pocket. ALSO READ: With consecutive hikes, petrol crosses Rs 90-mark in Maharashtra's Parbhani According to the ET report, diesel cost forms seven to eight per cent of the total revenue of a telecom company and a continuous hike in its price is likely to have an impact on the company's Ebitda margins in the July-September period. Telecom industry is the second largest buyer of diesel after the Railways and spends nearly Rs 90 billion on it on an annual basis. The dip in margins is another hit for the telecom industry which is reeling under the pressure of nearly Rs 8 trillion of debt, ET reports, caused by a price war started with the entry of Reliance Jio into the sector. Rea...