Airtel looses, Vodafone, Idea, Aircel gain in revenue market share (India)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Amidst the entry of several new players and a brutal tariff war, 1% rise in the revenue market share has been reported by GSM operators Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular and Aircel over the past 12 months. As per FY10 revenue analysis, the only incumbents who lost out during the period are Bharti Airtel, the country’s largest telco by sales and customers whose revenue share slid by 1.2%, , and state-owned BSNL & MTNL with a combined dip of 2.5%.

The combined revenue market share BSNL and MTNL was 9.2 % for 2009-10 while Bharti Airtel ended the year with 31.5%. Reliance Communications, the country’s second largest telco by customers, has seen its market share remain flat at 11.5%. Tata Teleservices, which had triggered off the price war with its aggressive GSM entry at one-paise-per-second tariff, has also made impressive gains — its revenue share jumped 0.7% in 2009-10. It also accounted for 8.6% of the country’s sales from mobile services for the three-month ended March.

According to Telenor’s executive vice president and head of its Asia operations Sigve Brekke, customer numbers are meaningless and so are average revenue per user (ARPU) figures — these have been impacted heavily by multiple SIM ownership hence the only measure is revenue market share.  Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar have emerged as the country’s largest GSM operators,  accounting for close to 53% of all mobile revenues.

Ajay Parmar, head of institutional equities at Emkay Global Financial Services explained that in the case of Idea Cellular, the company added new territories during the last 12 months and has been very aggressive in the new areas they have ventured into while for Vodafone, it could be a combination of superior services and smart marketing and on the other hand, BSNL is a weak player which has not shown enough ambition.