Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel, other telecom stocks a mixed bag after TRAI releases monthly data

Telecom stocks staged mixed moves on Friday, a day after data from the sector’s regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), showed a marginal increase in the country’s telecom subscriber base in June compared with the previous month. Vodafone Idea shares registered sharp gains while the Bharti Airtel stock declined.

According to the TRAI report, the telecom subscriber base in the country, including wire-line and wireless users, stood at 1,173.89 million at the end of June as against 1,172.57 million a monght ago.

Reliance Jio added over 2.27 million new customers and Bharti Airtel added 1.4 million customers during the month. BSNL lost 1.87 million mobile subscribers, Vodafone Idea lost 1.28 million subscribers and MTNL lost 1.5 lakh subscribers. 

The S&P BSE Telecom index — whose 16 constituents include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra), Indus Towers, GTL Infra, Route Mobile, Tata Communications and MTNL — gained as much as 1.6 per cent on Friday. 

Here's how the telecom basket fared on Dalal Street:

Vodafone Idea

At 11:35 am, Vodafone Idea shares were up 4.7 per cent at Rs 8.32 apiece on BSE, having gained by as much as 48 paise or six per cent to Rs 8.43 apiece earlier in the day in an overwise weak market. 

Bharti Airtel 

Bharti Airtel shares were down 0.1 per cent at Rs 868.8 apiece, after falling by as much as Rs 7.6 or 0.9 per cent to Rs 861.9 apiece in intraday trade. 

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL)

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam shares were down 2.7 per cent at Rs 21.9 apiece. Earlier in the day, the MTNL stock fell as much as 3.9 per cent to Rs 21.6 apiece. 

Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd (TTML)

TTML shares were up 2.5 per cent at Rs 84.7 apiece on BSE, having staged a jump of as much as 5.3 per cent to Rs 86.6 apiece earlier in the day. 

What the telecom regulator said

Overall growth in telecom subscribers in the country was mitigated by the loss of subscribers by state-owned BSNL, MTNL and Vodafone Idea, the regulator said in its monthly report. 

After a marginal decline in May, wireline connections increased in June. The net addition in wireless subscribers of telecom operators was at 3,73,602 in June. "Total wireless subscribers increased from 1,143.21 million at the end of May-23, to 1,143.58 million at the end of June-23, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.03 per cent," TRAI said.

The growth in the wire-line segment was led by APFPL, which added 6,56,424 new connections. It was followed by Reliance Jio with the addition of 2,08,014 connections, Bharti Airtel (1,34,021), V-Con Mobile and Infra (13,100), Tata Teleservices (12,617), and Quadrant (6,540) in June.

The number of total broadband users increased 0.5 per cent sequentially to 861.47 million, the data showed. "The top five service providers constituted 98.37 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of June-23. These service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd 447.75 million, Bharti Airtel 248.06 million, Vodafone Idea 124.90 million, BSNL 24.59 million and Atria Convergence 2.16 million," the report added.

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