As per the recent performance indicator report (PIR) released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the telecom industry recorded a 1.88 per cent sequential growth in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) to Rs 678.35 billion in the quarter ended (QE) December 2023, led by growth of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, which expanded their 5G services.
Meanwhile, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) saw its AGR for mobile services rise, and Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi) continued to witness a decline.
As per the PIR report, of the total AGR of the telecom industry, access or mobile services contributed 82.07 per cent at Rs 556.69 billion while national long distance (NLD) AGR stood at 65.23 billion and internet service provider AGR at Rs 38.81 billion.
In terms of mobile services, the report noted that Airtel’s quarterly AGR, or revenue from licenced services, increased 3.22 per cent sequentially to Rs 204.80 billion in the QE December 2023 while Jio saw an increase of 2.67 per cent to Rs 248.62 billion. However, Vi saw its AGR decline by 0.65 per cent to 74.59 billion.
The report added that BSNL’s AGR for access services rose by 2.31 per cent to Rs 20.11 billion for the reported period.
The report further added that higher quarterly AGR translated into higher licence fee and spectrum usage charge (SUC) collections for the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The licence fee mop-up rose 2.01 per cent sequentially to Rs 54.33 billion while SUC collections increased 1.06 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to Rs 8.45 billion.
