According to data from industry regulator Trai, consumer spending on mobile phone services grew 20% year over year to 47,800 crores in the quarter that concluded on June 30. This increase is mostly attributable to carriers’ November 2021 rate increases.
Reports on TRAI’s quarterly performance indicators are delayed. Leading carriers have already released their September quarter earnings this month.
Despite a decline in talk-time minutes, a surge in 4G users to 752 million and a rise in overall consumer data consumption contributed to the improvement. Average revenue per user (ARPU) for telcos has increased as a result of rising revenues.
“Inter-company settlement reduced 26% on-quarter, which has increased net revenue faster versus consumer spend. ARPU (based on consumer spend) rose 3.2% on-quarter and 23.8% on-year to ₹139 ( ₹170 including GST) benefiting from price increase taken in Dec’21, and additional day in the quarter,” said analysts at ICICI Securities. For the quarter ended June 2021, the ARPU was ₹112. Consumer spending comes to ₹1.91 trillion for FY23, analysts said.
For the quarter ended in June, net revenue, calculated after deducting inter-company settlement amounts, was 45,860 crores, with prepaid services accounting for 89.5% and postpaid services for the remaining 10.5%. Over 1.14 billion people who are prepaid clients make up approximately 95% of the total customer base of telecoms.
Prepaid revenue jumped 22.7% to 41,040 crores for the industry in the quarter ended June compared to the same quarter last fiscal year, while postpaid revenue increased 33% to 4,820 crores on the back of more subscribers.
The prepaid section of ARPUs increased by 30.2% year over year to 129, reflecting the strong growth. Postpaid ARPU, on the other hand, fell 8.3% to 198 in the same comparable period.
Reliance Jio, the country’s largest telecom provider, profited the most from the expanding 4G sub-base as its market share of subscribers rose by 24bps in the quarter ended in June, reaching 54.9%. By adding 12bps, Bharti Airtel boosted its market share to 27.3%. Vodafone Idea’s 4G subscribers’ market share dropped by 16bps to 15.8%. As of June 2022, Jio had 413 million 4G customers, whereas Airtel had 205 million and Vodafone Idea had 119 million.
