India mobile operators’ revenue dips 12.5% in first quarter

Telecom regulator TRAI said gross revenue of mobile operators rose 1.82 percent quarter on quarter and fell 1.76 percent year on year to Rs 62,198 crore in Q1 2018.
Adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of Indian mobile service providers declined 7.37 percent quarter on quarter and dropped 12.57 percent year on year to Rs 35,697 crore in the first quarter of 2018.
Average Revenue per User (ARPU) for telecom operators based on AGR declined from Rs 80.77 in December 2017 to Rs 71.62 in March 2018. The decline in ARPU was due to hyper competition among Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone and Reliance Jio.

TRAI has also released adjusted gross revenue of telecom operators from access services with all operators – excluding BSNL and Reliance Jio — showing decline in their revenue in the first quarter.

BSNL has reported revenue of Rs 2128.67 crore, registering an increase of 18.24 percent in the first quarter.

Reliance Jio Infocomm’s adjusted gross revenue rose 14.99 percent to Rs 6217 crore, said TRAI.
Indian telecom operators generated adjusted gross revenue of Rs 2900.43 crore from Metros, Rs 10323.11 crore from A circles, Rs 8908.11 crore from B circles and Rs 3316.45 crore from C circles.

TRAI said Metros contribute 11.40 percent revenue to mobile operators, while the balance 40.57 percent is from A circles, 35.01 percent from B circles and 13.03 percent from C circles.

Internet statistics

India has 493.96 million Internet subscribers. India has 412.60 million Broadband subscribers. India has 21.24 million wired Internet subscribers and 472.72 million wireless Internet subscribers.

India’s urban Internet subscriber base was 348.13 million, while rural Internet subscriber base was 145.83 million.

India’s Internet penetration was 38.02 — 84.74 for urban and 16.41 for rural India.