Airtel Analyst Call – m-Commerce Efforts On + Infratel Neutral to Positive in 12 Months
The Bharti Airtel Analyst call is on and here is a quick share of management views on various topics.
- Many Questions on decline in MoU – The management is of the view that as 52% of its customers are now coming from rural India where MoU is significantly lower, the small drop in overall number is manageable. Multiplicity of SIM cards due to Freebies by launch of GSM services by new operators did impact to small extent. However, the customer is likely to come back to Airtel after the Freebies end.
- Impressive Margins due to higher productivity and efficiencies across the board. DTH / Digital TV and Sri Lankan Operations data will be provided from next quarter – July-2010.
- USD 2.2 bn standalone CAPEX for the forthcoming FY-2010
- Dividend Policy – Company has reached a stage that there is nothing to worry and share holders dividends will be an on-going process
- m-Commerce – Airtel’s Sanjay Kapoor is on a Jihad mission to encash on the opportunities by Banking the Unbanked [Mobile Banking]and is putting a great efforts in the same. However, he clearly dismissed this effort to contribute to the bottomline within the next 12 months and could take anything between 18-24 months.
- Infratel - [Indus + Bharti] They together are likely to be Neutral to Positive in the consolidated Numbers for Bharti Airtel in FY-2010. Passive Infrastructure is based without any bias and discrimination to operators. Company is negotiating with new players and no further details were divulged specifically, to a question on Voadafone’s gain
- Take on Metro + A Circle – Airtel continues to gain Revenue market share in these circles and is still growing. Overall, Airtel has 32% revenue market share and 24% subscriber market share in Wireless Operations in India.
- 2G Spectrum – Awaiting final guidelines and didn’t want to comment much. Company didn’t acknowledge that it had enough spectrum in most circles. However, they are looking forward to spectrum in some circles [Metros] and will bid in the auction process whenever required. No comments on one time Fees that it will have to pay on the Spectrum it is holding.
- Roaming Revenues – Domestic is in-line though Rural Indian subscribers are a drag. International roaming facing stress like any other carrier in India.
- Post-Paid- Revenue – Management avoids giving the break-up of Post-paid Revenues. I guess this question was likely asked with the nearing of Mobile Number Portability in India. Post MNP implementation, operators don’t want to lose the cream – Post-paid customers.
The coverage on Wireless battle will continue as Reliance announces its results tomorrow.
Bharti Airtel Impressive Q4 – Broadband Subscribers Cross 1mn Mark
I have just received the results of Bharti Airtel Ltd for the FY ending March-31st 2009. Here is a quick look into the results.
- Revenues touched an all time high of 36,961 cr [+37% YoY] and a Net Profit of Rs 8,469 [+26% YoY]
- The company for the first time declared a dividend of 20% and announced a stock split in the ratio of 1:52
- Airtel Broadband subscribers reached a million at 1.072 mn at the end of March with an ARPU of Rs 1,071 [down from Rs 1,098]
- Wireless Services continued its subscriber addition to reach 93.9 mn with an ARPU of Rs 305 [down from Rs 324 recorded in Dec-08 Quarter] Minutes of Usage / Month is also down to 485 down from 505. 94% of its subscribers are pre-paid.
- Value Added Services – VAS [SMS, MMS, Caller Tunes etc] contributed 9.3% of the total revenues of Wireless segment.
- Digital TV segment continues to operate under Loss
- Wireless division continued to attract bulk of the investment at 49% followed by Passive Infrastructure services 24%. Telemedia which includes broadband received just 11% while Enterprise Services attracted 14%.
Stay tund for more updates.
Wireless subscribers base at 386 mn + Airtel losing to Reliance + Broadband growth slowsdown
Aggressive marketing tactics has worked at RCom as the company is all set to take-off in adding more GSM subscribers to its platform. At the end of March-09 [FY 09] Reliance Communications wireless subscribers market share went up to 18.8% from 17.9% in Dec-08. Airtel lost its subscriber market share from 25% to 24.3%. In Jan, Bharti Airtel executives had downplayed RCom’s GSM launch and I am sure they have woken up atleast now. Airtel is still leading in ARPU / Revenue market share but the equation is fast changing out of its favor and the company needs to address this with urgency.
Vodafone, Idea Cellular and BSNL India havae managed to maintain their market share on a QoQ basis. Tata Indicom / Telservices has seen a drop from 9.3% to 9.1% in the past quarter. Industry net-adds were 130m in FY09 (10.8m per month) vs. 95m in FY08. At the end of March-09, India’s Mobile / Wireless Subscriber base stands at 386 mn [GSM + CDMA] Stay tuned for more on Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications.
Broadband Subscriber base in India touched 6.2 mn at the end of March-09. YoY basis the growth has slowed down from 66.66% recorded between March 2007-08 to 59.48% between March-2008-09. However, with the launch of EVDO and auction of 3G, broadband penetration should accelerate as Telcos will want to improve their bottomline.
GSM Wireless Subscribers Base at 289 mn Ex-Reliance – Airtel Subscribers Reach 94 mn
According to figures released by the COAI, the Indian GSM Wireless Subscribers base has touched 288 mn [ 288,363,482] excluding Reliance GSM. GSM operators added a record 10.8 mn subscribers in the month of March-09, the highest ever addition since they began operations in India.
- Vodafone Essar India added 2.84 m subscribers beating Airtel to reach 68.76 m subs
- Bharti Airtel added 2.80 m subs takings its total tally to 93.9m
- Idea Cellular added 1.5 m subs ans is now serving 43 m subs across India
- Aircel is coming strong as it added 1 m subs and now has a total subscriber base of 18.4 m
- BSNL continues to be the laggard adding just another 1.08 m subs and has a base of 46 m subs
Will be updated when Reliance GSM releases its numbers.
Airtel’s Outsourcing Deal to IBM Stronger- Airtel Karnataka Systems Down
Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal [popularly known as SBM within Airtel] surely thought out of the Box and outsourced the IT + Infrastructure of Airtel to IBM, the first kind of its deal which others copied ET reports that IBM has bagged another contract from Bharti Infratel and other business unites – IPTV, DTH etc.
However, I fail to understand the poor quality of Airtel’s Wireless Systems in Karnataka Circle [implemented by IBM ?]. Normally, such minor issue doesn’t deserve to be on this blog, but this has become a MAJOR ISSUE and Mr. Venkatesh, Bharti Airtel Wireless CEO of Karnataka seems to be turning a blind eye.
I had an issue with ISD calling and I must have called the customer care 10 times which they could not resolve because their systems were always down. I gave up after a month. Later someone called to tell me they could not investigate further, but will give partial credit and close the issue.
Airtel is back to haunting me again. I have already written about their poorly developed Airtel Selfcare / Bill Payment system earlier and today they are down again. The worst thing is I don’t even see my Mobile A/C Number, tried to pay the Broadband bill and Self Care system doesn’t let me do it. Airtel needs to address these issues with urgency and restore customer’s confidence.
Online Advertising Security – WebChutney’s Malware Infected Network – Google SafeBrowsing API is for You
I had always wanted to write about Online Advertising in India and the next couple of posts are related to the same. WebChutney which claims itself to be India’s No 1 Digital agency had some poorly implemented Ad network system. Their network was infected by Malware and Google flagged the same which the company Engineers [if any] were probably unaware of. What really happens is hackers take control of Ad Serving Server and insert a script to be served to all users. The Script will serve malicious content from a different server. Unfortunately, Advertising Networks across the world except Google don’t have the capability to analyze such a hack. Google to promote a user friendly web free from Malware gave out its SafeBrowsing API which anybody can use and implement and take care of issues like that of WebChutney. FireFox and Chrome browsers have implemented SafeBrowsing API internally and hence all users going online with those browsers were safe and the rest could have been infected.
WebChutney’s list of clients include Airtel, Kingfisher, Titan, ITC, etc and I wonder how they were able to sign-up these corporates 
I wonder what wast the loss to these clients and others using WebChutney’s network [iGovernment]
Is Online Advertising about Marketing or Technology ? There are over a dozen Ad Networks in India and I am inclined to say none of them have implemented Google’s SafeBrowsing API or a similar system. Internet Advertising once upon a time used to be a total marketing effort with the big guys [newspapers, portals as publishers and Coke, Ford, etc as advertisers] getting all the attention. However, Disruptive Technology like AdWords changed the entire industry and the Big Guys are on the receiving end today
Indian advertisers should realize the importance of technology along with marketing and put a hard effort to innovate otherwise they are digging their own grave
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