Telecom sector AGR up 2.53% on-qtr in Q4FY23, Jio gains maximum revenue: Trai
Latest telco performance data put out by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday showed that Reliance Jio notched up the highest sequential AGR gain in the quarter ending March, ahead of Bharti Airtel, while loss-making Vodafone Idea(Vi) reported a fall. Jio’s quarterly AGR, or revenue from licensed services, grew 1.7% sequentially to Rs 22,985 crore in the January-March period, while Airtel’s rose 1.15% on-quarter to Rs 18,500 crore.
Vi’s AGR in the March quarter, FY23, fell 1.61% sequentially to Rs 7,210.63 crore, underlining the cash-strapped telco’s continuing inability to compete effectively, also reflected in heavy customer losses to its bigger rivals. Overall, the telecom industry’s AGR rose 2.53% sequentially to Rs 64,494 crore in the fiscal fourth quarter, FY23.
A higher quarterly AGR translated into higher licence fee collections for the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). But spectrum usage charge (SUC) collections fell yet again sequentially, especially after the government stopped charging the statutory fee on airwaves bought from the 5G auction onwards last July.
The licence fee mop-up rose 2.53% sequentially to Rs 5,159 crore, while SUC collections fell 6.94% on-quarter to Rs 755 crore in the March quarter. Telcos annually pay 8% of their AGR as licence fees.
But since the scrapping of the 3% floor on SUC — over a year back – and also the government’s decision not to charge SUC from the 5G spectrum sale onwards, operator payouts towards this fee has plunged to under 1% of AGR from around 3-4% earlier. Overall, sectoral minutes of consumption rose, with the all-India average minutes of usage (MoU) per subscriber per month from wireless services up 2.97% sequentially to 946 in the
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