Reliance Jio tops with AGR at Rs 25,331 crore, Airtel sees steepest growth; govt's fee collection rises 10% in Jan-March

New Delhi: Reliance Jio posted the highest adjusted gross revenue, on the basis of which the government calculates spectrum and licence fee, at Rs 25,330.97 crore while Bharti Airtel saw its AGR grew at sharpest pace in March 2024 quarter, a report by sector regulator Trai said on Thursday.

Reliance Jio's adjusted gross revenue (AGR) grew by 10.21 per cent during the latest January-March quarter from Rs 22,985 crore in the same period a year ago.

Airtel's AGR grew by 13.25 per cent to Rs 20,951.91 crore in the March 2024 quarter from Rs 15,500.36 crore a year ago.

Loss making Vodafone Idea posted a marginal 2.22 per cent year-on-year increase in AGR at Rs 7,370.75 crore from Rs 7,210.63 crore.

State-owned BSNL and MTNL posted declines of 4.41 per cent and 13.78 per cent in AGR to Rs 1991.61 and Rs 156.61 crore, respectively.

Overall, telecom service providers' gross revenue grew by 3.01 per cent on a year-over-year basis to Rs 87,926 crore and adjusted gross revenue grew by 9.25 per cent in the March 2024 quarter.

Government collection from the service providers in the form of licence fee (LF) and spectrum usage charges (SUC) increased by over 10 per cent to Rs 6,506 crore on year-over-year (YoY) basis, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) report.

"Gross Revenue (GR), Applicable Gross Revenue (ApGR) and Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of the telecom service sector for the quarter ended March 2024 has been Rs 87,926 crore, Rs 83,945 crore and Rs 70,462 crore, respectively," Trai Performance Indicator Report for March 2024 quarter said.

The YoY rate of growth in GR, ApGR and AGR in the quarter ended March 2024 over the same quarter in last year has been 3.01, 6.76 and 9.25 per cent, respectively, the report said.

The licence fee collection increased by 9.28 per cent to Rs 5,637 crore in the March 2024 quarter from Rs 5,159 crore in March 2023 quarter.

The SUC increased by 15.11 per cent to Rs 869 crore from Rs 755 crore on YoY basis.