Gross revenues of 22 telecom carriers drop in third quarter of fiscal 2014

Gross revenue of 22 telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel, RCom, BSNL and Tata Teleservices, declined in October-December quarter of 2013 compared to the previous quarter, government said on Monday.

However, 39 operators, including Vodafone, Idea Cellular, SSTL and Aircel, saw a rise in gross revenue in the quarter, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.

Gross revenue of Bharti Airtel, which is country's largest mobile operator, decreased to Rs 8,639.25 crore for the quarter ending December 2013 from Rs 15,468.84 crore in the quarter ending September 2013, the data showed.

The government quoted data provided by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Reliance Communications (RCom) gross revenue decreased to Rs 3,342.54 crore from Rs 3,470.5 crore and Tata Teleservices to Rs 2,893.82 crore from Rs 2,909.82 crore in the reported period.

State-run mobile operators BSNL and MTNL too witnessed a drop in revenue to Rs 6,804.18 crore and Rs 1,080.44 crore from Rs 7,127.58 crore and Rs 1,105.22 crore respectively.

However, gross revenue of Idea Cellular increased to Rs 7,727.37 crore from Rs 7,395.45 crore in the reported period.

Gross revenue of Vodafone India, which include eight subsidiaries, increased to Rs 12,715.54 crore from Rs 11,052.32 crore for the reported period. Vodafone's firms include Vodafone Mobile Services, Vodafone Ltd, Vodafone Cellular, Vodafone East, Vodafone South, Vodafone Digilink, Vodafone Gujarat and Vodafone Spacetel.

Sistema Shyam Teleservices's (SSTL) gross revenue increased to Rs 299.48 crore from Rs 284.35 crore for the reported period.

"The data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India indicates that the revenue of 39 telecom service providers increased and revenue of 22 telecom service providers decreased in October-December quarter 2013 over the previous quarters," Prasad said.