Telecom Lead India: Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said there
will be mobile pricing corrections as the Indian telecom industry is moving
towards consolidation.
Sanjay Kapoor, CEO – India & South Asia, Bharti
Airtel, said Airtel despite dwindling margins is moving in the right direction.
Addressing telecom analysts to discuss Airtel’s first
quarter revenue, Airtel CEO said TRAI guidelines around processing fees
restricted the sales of combo packs which offered bundled service propositions
to augment customer value. These regulations have restricted the
operators from free market pricing prevalent hitherto. The net impact of these
changes in this quarter was in the range of Rs 2,500 Rs 3,000 million.
Airtel is also careful about Capex in 2G and 3G.
Regarding the spectrum auction, Sanjay said Airtel is not
in a position to comment. The mobile operator is in the process of evaluating
its options currently. Airtel will be prompted to enter the auction market in
2015 when its current telecom licenses expire.
Bharti Airtel also said that it is considering an
initial public offering of its tower unit, Bharti Infratel.
Bharti Airtel leverage mobile number portability and it’s
is the second largest beneficiary.
Sanjay claims that its DTH business has recovered.
Manoj Kohli, CEO of Airtel Africa, said Airtel’s African
investments are giving results. It will strengthen its 3G and mobile money
business in Africa.
Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel’s ARPU from mobile services and
data services in India reduced by 3 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in
the first quarter of fiscal 2012-13. Mobile services ARPU decreased 3 percent
to Rs 185 in first quarter ended June 30 2012 from Rs 190 in the same quarter
previous fiscal. Mobile data ARPU declined 10 percent to Rs 40 from Rs 44. 3G
users of Bharti Airtel increased to 37,13,000 in Q1 2012-13 from 27,11,000 in
Q4 2011-12.
