Voice call revenue dips 80%, SMS 94% with OTT’s 10-year growth

NEW DELHI: Telecom operators’ revenue share from voice calls has declined by about 80 per cent and by 94 per cent from SMS in the last 10 years as the usage of internet-based calling and messaging apps grew, according to a Trai paper.

However, revenue share per user from data usage grew over 10 times between June 2013 quarter to December 2022 quarter, according to the paper.

Telecom regulator Trai in its latest paper to regulate internet messaging and callings app like WhatsApp, Google Meet, Facetime etc said with growing usage of over-the-top (OTT) applications for messaging, voice communication, has led to a transition from voice and SMS towards data as a primary source of revenue for telecom service providers globally.

“In India, composition of the revenue basket of wireless access service providers has undergone a sea-change in the period from the year 2013 to 2022,” the Telecom Regulatory Authourity of India (Trai) said in its consultation paper on “Regulatory Mechanism for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communication Services, and Selective Banning of OTT Services”.

All the major components of average revenue per user (ARPU)-- which is a key matrix to measure telecom operators growth, except data revenue share, have declined between June 2013 quarter and December 2022 quarter. As per the paper, while share of revenue from data has grown over 10-fold to 85.1 per cent in December 2022 quarter from 8.1 in June 2013 quarter per subscriber, the ARPU grew only about 41 per cent to Rs 146.96 from Rs 123.77 during the same period. The data in the paper shows that the share of revenue calls declined to Rs 14.79 or 10.1 per cent in ARPU of Rs 146.96 from Rs 72.53 or 58.6 per cent between December 2022 quarter or June 2013 quarter.

Similarly, revenue share from SMS declined to 23 paise or 20 per cent of ARPU from Rs 3.99 or 3.22 per cent. Trai in the paper is exploring if OTT players can be brought under licensing framework which will result in them coughing up entry fees, pay revenue share, facilitate lawful interception, provide call data record, spend on regulatory compliance etc for providing service. The regulator in its past recommendations has allowed OTTs to operate in the country without obtaining any licence.

But, a Parliamentary panel on Communications and IT recommended evaluating a selective ban on services of internet calling and messaging apps to mitigate the impact of a complete internet shutdown in a disturbed area.