The smaller telcos in India, on aggregate, saw 21% YoY revenue decline vs. industry revenue decline of 14%. FY17 marked the first year of industry revenue decline at 2.2%. In 4Q, Bharti saw the highest RMS gains YoY at 190bps. Bharti also managed to hold on or improve its RMS in all circles. Vodafone gained 56bps RMS YoY whereas Idea saw a loss of 8bps.
Metro/class A/B/C circles saw 9%/8%/5%/4% QoQ revenue decline in 4Q. In our view, this can be explained by: 1) JIO?s initial focus being primarily in metros and class A circles; and 2) smartphone penetration declining as one moves from metros to class C circles. These factors would have resulted in a higher extent of down-trading in metro and class A circles.
We understand that: 1) JIO is working on 4G feature-phones; and 2) JIO is expanding its rural coverage. There is a large portion of revenue that has so far been out of reach for JIO's disruptive launches. The disruption in this segment will likely happen within six months.
