The telecom industry's adjusted gross revenue (AGR) increased by 3.87% sequentially in the fiscal last quarter of FY24 to Rs 70,462 crore, owing to growth by Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, while beleaguered Vodafone Idea and state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) continued to see a decline in mobile services AGR.

 

Airtel and Reliance Jio have practically finished their 5G rollouts, and Vodafone Idea will soon begin the introduction of the latest telecom technology. Analysts expect the sector's income to rise further as all private telecom providers raise headline rates by 11-25%.

 

The latest operator performance data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Thursday showed that Airtel's quarterly AGR for access licensed services or mobile services increased 2.30% sequentially to Rs 20,951.91 crore in the January-March period, while Jio's AGR increased 1.88% to Rs 25,330.97 crore.

 

Vodafone Idea (Vi) saw its access services AGR fall by 1.18%, to Rs 7,370.75 crore. Similarly, BSNL's AGR fell 1.01% to Rs 1,991.61 crore. Interestingly, MTNL's access services AGR increased 10.28% to Rs 156.61 crore from Rs 142 crore in the previous quarter, despite the relatively low base.

 

According to the report, access services accounted for 80.24% of the overall AGR of the telecom industry at Rs 56,539.81 crore, followed by NLD (national long distance) at Rs 7,096.44 crore and ISP (internet service provider) at Rs 4,870.94 crore.