Stock Market

Positive IUC revenues help Jio avoid eighth straight quarterly ARPU fall

   Download Android App    Share in      FullScreen   CheckVideos

Kolkata: Reliance Jio Infocomm’s average revenue per user (ARPU) would have fallen for the eighth successive quarter during October-December despite two tariff hikes during this period had it not garnered strong termination revenues stemming from a favourable calling traffic pattern, analysts say. Jio’s December price raise, they said, won’t drive any meaningful ARPU growth for the company till the April-June quarter of FY21, as a bulk of its customers remain on longer-validity plans and haven’t moved to the new tariff packs. The Mukesh Ambani-led telco reported a 7 per cent sequential growth in ARPU to Rs 128.4 in the December quarter, after seven successive quarters of decline. ARPU is a key performance metric closely linked to the profitability in a capital-intensive sector like telecom where companies need to invest a lot on infrastructure. Jio’s decision to charge six paise a minute for voice calls to rival networks to recover interconnect usage charges (IUC) from October, analysts said, improved its voice traffic mix in the fiscal third quarter.

This boosted its IUC, or ‘termination’ revenues, and helped arrest the fall in ARPU, they said. “If it wasn’t for IUC revenues, Jio’s ARPU could have seen some marginal decline in the December quarter as per our analysis,” said Rajiv Sharma, research head at SBICap Securities.

The recent tariff increases, however, did not improve Jio’s ARPU as “most of its users are on the 84-day plan”, he said. Nitin Soni, director (corporates) at global rating agency Fitch, said, “Jio’s modest ARPU growth even after two tariff hikes is surprising and well below our estimates of around Rs 135-140, which suggests the telco is still offering discounts and promotions in the market.” Jio’s decision to charge IUC for calls to rival networks helped turn its calling traffic flow to 53 per cent inbound and 47 per cent outbound, from 38 per cent inbound and 62 per cent outbound previously, resulting in the company becoming a net recipient of IUC revenues for the first time in the December quarter. Interconnect charge is paid by the call-originating telco to the destination carrier.

The sector regulator recently deferred implementing a zero-IUC regime to January 2021 from the earlier January 2020 deadline. On the positive side for Jio, analysts said the Supreme Court’s decision denying relief to Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel with regard to payment of statutory AGR dues would drive accelerated market share gains for Jio in the near to medium term. Sharma of SBICap Securities pointed out that the company management had in its post-results analyst call said its “network utilisation is still low, and hence it can handle more subscribers with limited capex and existing spectrum resources”. Jio reported 62.5 per cent year-on-year jump in its net profit for the December quarter at Rs 1,350 crore — its ninth successive quarterly profit — even though its decision to recover IUC for voice calls to other networks led to a churn of some 22 million subscribers, which analysts estimate to have had an adverse revenue impact on quarterly revenue.




Unlimited Portal Access + Monthly Magazine - 12 issues-Publication from Jan 2021

Buy Our Merchandise (Peace Series)

 

Contribute US to Start Broadcasting


It's Voluntary! Take care of your Family, Friends and People around You First and later think about us. Its Fine if you dont wish to contribute and if you wish to contribute then think about the Homeless first and Feed them. We can survive with your wishes too :-). You can Buy our Merchandise too which are of the finest quality.

Debit/Credit/UPI

UPI/Debit/Credit

Paytm

STRIPE

Details
Category: Stock Market


21