3G News / Data

Idea Spends 1/3rd of Fresh Investments on 3G

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Idea Cellular continues to heavily invest in 3G – currently spending ~1/3rd of capex on 3G (network equipment + backhaul). It Expect mass market adoption of data (500m + data subs users) over next 3-5 yrs, with the mkt size expanding to Rs500-700bn.

Idea continues to gain both VLR (reflects active subs) sub share (+0.6% qoq in 4Q13 qtr) and rev mkt share (+0.9%qoq). Moreover,
its incremental share for both these metrics is 40-50%. Driven by (a) Increase in mobile penetration – Physical penetration is still only ~ 50%; (b) Increase in MoU per sub in part helped by lower incidence of multi-SIMs and (c) Improvement in voice

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Reliance 3G Offers Unlimited Access to All Matches of ICC Champions Trophy

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Reliance 3G Cricket Launch EventReliance Communications (RCom), country’s no 4 mobile phone carrier by customers, has entered into partnership with Star Sports to offer unlimited live streaming of all ICC Champions Trophy cricket matches for 3G and prepaid GSM customers in the country.

With this partnership, Reliance customers can now avail unlimited live streaming of the matches on their smartphones by subscribing for a tournament pass of Rs 301 without paying any additional data consumption charges. Customers will also benefit from the package being inclusive of the Rs 50 subscription fee for access on www.starsports.com.

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Idea Cellular Withdraws Benefits on Pre-Paid STV / Packs – May 2013

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Idea STV - RechargeIdea Cellular the plain vanilla wireless operator in India continued to withdraw benefits in bits & pieces provided to its 90% of its pre-paid subscribers by means of Special Tariff Vouchers / STV or STD Packs, etc. This is in-line with Airtel and Vodafone as these operators have come under pressure from the Corrupt Government and DoT increasing il-legal levies and charges on spectrum not permissible under the law.

The STV / Recharge Vouchers and Packs Modified in may 2013 are as follows,

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Vodafone Pre-Paid Mobile Tariff Changes in May-2013

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Vodafone India STV Hikes in may 2013Vodafone India in-line with Airtel has reduced benefits on most of the Special recharge / tariff Vouchers and Pre-Paid Packs across all the 22 Circles in India. Even a Small Modification in STV / Recharge Pack adds considerably to the bottomline of the company in that circle. We’d like to present you data on the Vodafone Pre-Paid Mobile STV / Recharge Pack Modifications that happened in May-2013 as shown in the table below

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Airtel Pre-Paid Mobile Tariff Benefits Reduced in May-2013 – Tracking Changes

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Airtel IndiaBharti Airtel India’s Largest Wireless Carrier has a Big Data Analytics Team Closely Working with its Product Managers in Delhi who decide how to modify the Pre-Paid Plans across 22 Cicles in India. We tracked Airtel closely in the last 1 month and here are the key changes they brought across circles reducing benefits on Pre-Paid Special tariff Plans / Vouchers and boosting bottom-line of the company. The following table shows the same

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Mobile remittances: Who benefits – Banks or Wireless Companies ?

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Eko believes the mobile banking business model has (1) convenience, (2) trust and (3) security—all three attributes that are sine qua non in a banking business. However, what it lacks is the “invitation to everyone”. Models like cash, and to some extent hawala, are open to all—anyone can access these systems. Therefore the process of … Read more

Idea Vs Airtel Vs Vodafone – 3G Coverage of RMS

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3G spectrum auction in India led to a fragmented allocation across operators, with none of the operators winning pan-India. The incumbents (Bharti, Idea, Vodafone) were however, able to cover 65-75% of their revenue base. As a result of this fragmented allocation, these operators entered into intra-circle roaming arrangements with one another to provide a nation-wide 3G service using each others’ spectrum in circles where they didn’t win.

Idea appears best placed. Most of its important circles have been covered with 3G spectrum (74% of revenue). While it didn’t win the important Mumbai, Delhi circles, it should be noted that Idea is relatively a new operator in these circles, which is also reflected in its revenue market share. Late entry has resulted in relatively inferior quality subscribers who are less likely to use 3G services, at least in the medium term. This should moderate any impact from lack of high-speed data service in these circle.

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Idea Cellular – The best-in-class Execution

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Idea’s superior execution can be seen both in its sustained revenue share gains as well as better cost control vs. peers. Idea has gained revenue share in all its top 5 revenue generating circles in the last 3 years. Vodafone has gained in 4; Airtel has lost in all 5 of its biggest circles. The top 5 circles for each operator contribute 50-60% to their topline.

Idea Cellular has shown sustained margin improvement vs. flat to declining trends by RCOM and Bharti. The sustained improvement on better cost control is especially commendable as it straddles its 2 roles – incumbent in 11 circles and new entrant in the remaining.

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Vodafone 3G Data Growth vs Revenue Mismtach

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Vodafone has 3.3mn 3G subscribers in India, representing 2.3% of its subscriber base (vs 3.4% for Airtel and 4.2% for Idea). However, note that whilst data traffic has increased by 165.1% YoY in FY13, data revenues have increased by only 19.7% over the same period, which may indicate that growth was driven by discounted data packages or freebies.

Vodafone reported India revenues of Rs 96.4bn, up 11.5% YoY, driven primarily by recovery in voice growth. Core voice revenues grew only 7% YoY despite a sharp QoQ recovery (+4.3% QoQ). Traffic growth came in at 9% YoY as against 11% in Q3. The SMS revenue decline accelerated to 14.5% YoY, while Data revenues grew ~30% YoY. EBITDA margins in 2H13 improved by 70bps to 29%.

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