Bharti Airtel is the most efficient telecom operator in India. It ranks ahead of its largest peers ? Idea and RCOM on most parameters of efficiency. For example, Bharti?s fixed cost at 26% of revenues is better than Idea?s 31%. Bharti?s revenue/ cell site stands 24% better than Idea.
This hierarchy is reflected in the three company?s return structures. While the return metrics of all three of them are quite depressed, the relative ranking is: Bharti > Idea > RCOM. Bharti ranks ahead of Idea, primarily for two reasons:
Scale advantage: At 30.7% revenue market share, Bharti is significantly larger than Idea, which has 17.5% share.
Spectrum advantage: Bharti has the best spectrum portfolio amongst Indian telcos. It holds the largest quantum of spectrum (16% of the total spectrum allotted to private players). Further, it controls 33% of the spectrum allotted/ auctioned in the 900MHz.
Among the Chinese telcos, China Mobile (CM) is clearly the most efficient operator from both cost and revenue perspectives. CM?s fixed and semi-variable cost base relative to revenues is the lowest among China telcos. CM delivers the highest revenue per head count while spending the least amount of marketing dollars per sub, partly due to its dominant market share (63% mobile subs market share as of Jul15).
