Bharti Airtel, the second-largest telecom operator in the country had a very good Q4 FY22. The telco’s average revenue per user (ARPU) grew to Rs 178 aided by the tariff hike. At the same time, ICICI Securities has said that Airtel’s AGR (adjusted gross revenue) market share has also grown very strongly in nine circles where it had shown a more than 100bps market share gain QoQ in Q4 FY22.
Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) AGR market share dipped to 18.3%, down by 6bps QoQ in Q4 FY22. However, the telco’s AGR grew by 7.4% YoY and 7.1% QoQ to Rs 94 billion.
For VIL, its leadership circles including Gujarat, Maharashtra, TN, and Kerala underperformed while Mumbai, UP East, and AP have performed well. ICICI Securities said that VIL did well in the established circles with an AGR growth of 12.7% QoQ. However, in the non-established circles, the telco continues to struggle with AGR growth of just 6.1% QoQ.
Airtel’s strong performance came on the back of tariff hikes which also aided Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi) in their operations.
Reliance Jio’s AGR Market Share Effect Will Come Later
Reliance Jio, the largest telecom operator in the country had an AGR market share of 40.9% during Q4 FY22 (up by 30bps QoQ). The telco’s growth in the metro cities has been lower at 5.9% QoQ while AGR rose by 9.6% / 7.8% / 8.5% in Circle A / B / C.
ICICI Securities said that the full effect of Reliance Jio’s tariff hikes will only be seen at a later stage as the telco has a lot of long-term plan subscribers. Jio is expected to post the best ARPU gain in Q1 FY23 as more of its subscribers finally recharge with the new higher tariffs. For now, Jio has lost AGR market share in 12 circles as per Q4 FY22 AGR analysis.
