Telecom sector revenue dips 8 pc, licence fee by 16 pc in Oct-Dec

New Delhi: Gross revenue of telecom services providers declined by 8.1 per cent while the licence fee collected by the government dropped by 16 per cent year-on-year in the quarter ended on December 31, 2017, a report by sector regulator Trai said.

The adjusted gross revenue (AGR) earned by companies from sale of telecom services declined by 16.05 per cent to Rs 38,536 crore in the reported on year-on-year basis.

"Gross Revenue (GR) and Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of telecom service sector for the quarter ended December 2017 has been Rs 61,089 crore and Rs 38,536 crore respectively. The year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in GR and AGR over the same quarter in last year has been (-) 8.18 per cent and (-) 16.05 per cent respectively," the Trai's quarterly performance indicator report said.

The licence fee which is collected from telecom service providers on the basis of AGR in turn declined by 16.04 per cent to Rs 3,104 crore in October-December 2017 period from Rs 3,249 crore in the same period a year ago.

The spectrum usage charge, which is also one of the major component of government's revenue declined by 29.72 per cent to to Rs 1,152 crore in the reported period from Rs 1,639 crore in same period a year ago.

The revenue of access service providers (ASPs) fell by 22.3 per cent during the period under review to Rs 28,967.93 crore from Rs 37,283.71 a year ago. The ASPs provide telecom services directly to consumers like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, BSNL, MTNL, etc.

The monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) earned by telecom service providers for GSM and 4G mobile services declined by 5.37 per cent to Rs 79 in the reported period from Rs 84 in the July-September 2017 period. There were 119 crore telephone subscribers in India at the end of December 2017.

"Monthly ARPU for GSM service (including LTE) declined by 23.61 per cent on y-o-y in this quarter," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in the report.

Total number of internet subscribers increased to 44.59 crore at the end of December 2017 from 42.92 crore at the end of September 2017.