Another important parameter to measure the strength of a wireless operator is on the basis of Adjusted Gross Revenue – AGR, which is the first indication of the relative financial strength 😉 All figures are for the end of Dec-2008 quarter.
Bharti Airtel has consistently gained in the past 12 months with its market share rising from 29.8% to 33.9% [Remember, it has subscriber market share of just 25%]
Idea Cellular [including Spice] has surprised us. Its AGR has grown over the past 4 quarters from 9.5% to 11.6% and who knows may occupy the third slot very soon. [Subscriber market share of 11.1%]
Reliance Communications [GSM + CDMA] has consistently lost revenue market share in the past one year from 15% to 12%. [Subscriber market share of [17.9%]
Vodafone India has managed to increase its revenue market share from 18.5% to 19.6% i nthe past year. [Subscriber market share of 17.8%]
State owned telecom companies BSNL + MTNL are leading the losers pack with with revenue share deteriorating from 15.2% to 11.8% . [Subscriber market share 12.1% BSNL + MTNL – N. A] Thus, they hurriedly launched 3G services to arrest the downfall.
Tata Teleservices, full fledged CDMA operator is another laggard with revenue share declining marginally from 8% to 7.2% over the past year and a quarter. [Subscriber market share 9.3%]
Important Observation: CDMA Operators Consistently Losing to GSM Operators
Indian CDMA operators have consistently seen a decline in Revenue Market share from 21.6% in Q3 FY08? to 17.9% in Q3 FY09.? While GSM operators managed to gain the loss of CDMA operators and now control a whopping 82.1% of the Indian wireless space. Will the trend change with Sistema’s entry into the space ? Or something needs to be changed in the CDMA ecosystem to make it fit in the context of the second largest wireless market in the world ?
I understand one of the reason why Reliance AGR is dropping is because of the aggressive marketing they have done for their GSM services..It will be interesting to get the growth stats for the Subscriber base (GSM & CDMA)for the Reliance. Are they loosing on the Subscriber base as well?