Despite the government’s recent grant of a two year moratorium on spectrum payments, Fitch has assigned a negative outlook to the Indian telecom sector for 2020. As per the credit rating agency, these reliefs would not offset dues.
Fitch believes that the decision by all three private companies to raise tariffs from December 2019 and a two-year moratorium on payment of spectrum dues were positive for the industry but are unlikely to be sufficient to offset the impact of a recent Supreme Court judgment regarding adjusted gross revenues (AGR) for incumbents— Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.
As per the agency, the divergence between Bharti’s and Vodafone Idea’s financial performance has continued in 2QFY20, while Jio continued to report strong revenue and EBITDA growth.
