Per Second Billing and how it is haunting the Indian telecom sector
Boy-o-Boy!! Is the one second billing thing changing the face of Indian Telecom!
It makes me wonder if Tata DOCOMO has opened a Pandora’s Box of sorts taking the Indian Telecom Industry into frenzy.
Even with a little exaggeration, per second billing to me is as revolutionary as the invention of the telephone itself. No wonder the world wants to know how the companies are able to do so and make hefty profits at the same time.
A friend working at AT&T, US told me that that AT&T is actually studying the business model of Bharti Airtel to understand the magic formulae of customer friendly prices.
A few months back, the whole BHARTI-MTN episode was doing the headlines. Bharti had been oh so desperate to make it big as a global telecommunication giant. A part of that desperation according to me was the Indian companies getting over-competitive and ARPU’s being rather low in India.
But, with DOCOMO’s per second billing and the subsequent announcement of TRAI making it mandatory for all operators to introduce “Per Second Billing”, it sounded alarm bells all around the telecom sector and Bharti Airtel was no exception.
The announcement saw many operators sit down and put their efforts to come to terms with the per second billing. It is estimated that the telecom industry can lose billions in revenue.
So, it came as no surprise when Singapore telecom (SINGLTEL) announced that it would be increasing its effective stake in India’s mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel to 31.95 percent from 30.43 percent.
SingTel which is a sponsor for Bharti Airtel would purchase an additional 730,000 shares at an estimated payment of between 18,073 million to 30,084 million INR.
It is clearly evident that Bharti Airtel is feeling the heat after joining per second billing price wars. The constantly increasing competition in the Indian telecom sector is definitely not helping the matters.
On Friday, Bharti Airtel gave a downbeat outlook due to a price war after posting its slowest pace of profit growth in at least six years, sending its shares down nearly 7 percent.
With per second billing slated to decrease the operating margins, the profits are surely going to be hit, lest the ARPU’s see a dramatic increase.
It has been an eventful quarter for Bharti Airtel starting with the MTN deal and the SINGTEL announcement hence forth. In one line, I think what can be said about the recent developments featuring Bharti Airtel is,
The Buyer has turned Seller
The problems are not for Airtel alone though, until and unless the telecom operators find innovative ways to increase the user spending and do it fast enough, the telecom sector might face some serious problems. One area which each of them have to look at seriously making ground is Mobile Value Added Services. The basic telephony is just not enough for these companies to sustain.
What do you think of the “per second” predicament. The customer is surely going to be happy but how are the telecom companies going to cope with it?
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