Telcos gross revenue up nearly 13% to Rs 73,344 crore in April-June

Gross revenue of telecom service providers rose by 12.79% to Rs 73,344 crore in April-June period of 2016 compared to a year ago period.

"Gross Revenue (GR) and Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of Telecom Service Sector for the quarter ended June 2016 has been Rs 73,344 crore and Rs 53,383 crore respectively," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in its performance indicator report for quarter ending June.

GR and AGR (revenue from telecom services only) increased by 7.33% and 10.34% respectively in reported quarter as compared to previous quarter.

"The year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in GR and AGR over the same quarter in last year has been 12.79% and 13.26% respectively," the report said.

GR and AGR of telecom service providers in the same period a year ago was Rs 65,030.31 crore and Rs 47,134.27 crore, respectively.

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"Access services contributed 83.84% of the total Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of telecom services. In Access services, Gross Revenue (GR), Adjusted Gross Revenue(AGR), License Fee and Spectrum Usage Charges(SUC) increased by 9.2%, 12.21%, 13.55% and 12.42%, respectively whereas, Pass Through Charges declined by 0.67% in quarter ended June 2016," the report said.

Pass-through charges are revenues earned by a telecom operator and passed on in to account of other operator like roaming revenue, interconnection charges etc.

Monthly Average Revenue per User (ARPU) for telecom services based on AGR increased from Rs 126.91 in quarter ended March 2016 to Rs 140.88 in the reported quarter.

Prepaid ARPU for GSM service per month increased to Rs 108 in reported quarter from Rs 107 in January-March period and postpaid ARPU per month increased to Rs 495 in June quarter from Rs 488 in previous quarter despite decline in minutes of usage of network by customers of both the segment.

The License Fee paid by telecom operators to government increased to Rs 4,314 crore during in April-June period.

"The quarterly and the year-on-year growth rates of licence fee are 11.43% and 14.05% respectively in this quarter," the report said. 

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