Telenor India / Uninor reported robust revenue of INR 10.2bn, up 9.6% QoQ. This was led by healthy subscriber-led traffic growth of 4.5% and a 5.1% RPM increase. Telenor hiked its voice RPM by 5.1% to INR 0.241/min, but it was still one-third the discount to Airtel and Idea Cellular.
Traffic growth of 4.5% was led by strong 2mn subscriber addition during the quarter of about 6.6% subscriber growth. MOU fell by 3% to 449 mins after a sustained rise over the past five quarters. Telenor’s MOU was above Idea’s and Airtel’s of 401 and 433, respectively, due to its low price offerings, which was largely due to the 2nd SIM phenomena. ARPU grew by 1.9% to INR 108 despite the 5% RPM rise partly offset by a 3% MOU decline.
Telenor India’s six circles contributed 37% to the industry pie. It continues to gain market share in these circles, with a 6.2% share during the March 2014 quarter, increasing by 50bp QoQ.
Uninor Witnesses Steady Growth in 2.5G Mobile Data
Management says it has witnessed rapid data growth of 32% in internet users and 42% growth in internet revenue over the past six months. Currently, nearly 19% of its subscribers are active data users, and it plans to continue offering data on the 2G platform as 3G data usage is limited in India.
Telenor India targets to complete redeployment of 5,000 cell sites by the next quarter from closed circles to the existing circles, out of which 1,325 cell sites have been already added in the past two quarters, with about INR 2.5bn in capex. This will increase coverage to 51% from 42% in the current six circles of operations.