Telcos' gross revenue rise 14 per cent to Rs 68,228 crore in 2020 September quarter

The Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR), from which the government takes its revenue share, increased by 22.41 per cent to Rs 45,707 crore during the September quarter from Rs 37,338 crore in the year-ago period, as per Trai's performance indicator report. 

The AGR of mobile and fixed line service providers to retail consumers like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and BSNL increased by 30.07 per cent to Rs 36,318 crore during the quarter under review. It was at Rs 27,921 crore in the year-ago period. 

The government's earning from licence fees also increased by 22.34 per cent to Rs 3,656 crore in the July-September 2020 period. 

"The License Fee increased from Rs 3,526 crore for the quarter ended June 2020 to Rs 3,656 crore for the quarter ended September 2020. The quarterly and the Y-O-Y growth rates of licence fee are 3.70 per cent and 22.34 per cent, respectively in this quarter," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in the report. 

Telecom operators' quarterly average revenue per user increased by 32.89 per cent to Rs 103.87 in the July-September 2020 period. 

The total telecom subscriber base in the country during the quarter was 116.86 crore. It was dominated by a mobile subscriber base of 114.85 crore. 

"Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd is the market leader with 34.76 per cent in the access segment in terms of number of subscribers with 406.21 million subscribers at the end of Sep-20 followed by Bharti Airtel Ltd with 331.03 million subscribers," the report said. 

However, Bharti Airtel during the quarter led the market in terms of highest net addition of subscribers. 

"Bharti Airtel Ltd became the biggest gainer with net addition of 10.08 million telephone subscribers during the quarter ended September 2020," the report said. 

The total number of internet subscribers in the country increased from 74.90 crore at the end of June 2020 to 77.64 crore at the end of September 2020. The internet subscriber base comprised 72.63 crore broadband subscribers, the report said.