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    Airtel no longer has a premium over Idea: Himanshu Kapania, MD, Idea Cellular

    Synopsis

    We have 138-million pure voice customers, so a voice promotion will affect them, but a data promotion need not impact all, says Kapania.

    ET Bureau
    Bharti Airtel's pricing is now at par with that of Idea Cellular, given that the Aditya Birla Group telecom operator is curbing promotional activities in voice, said Himanshu Kapania, managing director, Idea Cellular. The company has consolidated its 9,700 telecom towers under a single subsidiary to increase operational efficiency, he told ET’s Deepali Gupta in an interview. There has been much speculation that the company will sell its telecom towers to lighten its debt. Yet, Kapania said, in spite of a hit from amortisation on profits, the company’s debt to earnings ratio was well within industry norms, meaning no intervention was needed from promoters to increase stake. Edited excerpts:

    Bharti Airtel has said it would not raise voice rates, will that foil your plans to raise rates?

    We haven’t raised rates in this quarter (ended in March), we have just clamped down on promotions. Voice rates have been falling for the last six quarters, but this quarter we have a realised rate of 33 paise. Bharti no longer has a premium over us.

    What will less promotion mean for data uptake?

    Both data and voice are being run independently. We have 138-million pure voice customers, so a voice promotion will affect them, but a data promotion need not impact all.

    Are data rates still under pressure?

    The data realised rate in the quarter fell 2.8% because of the colossal capacity increased while demand is far behind. It will be difficult to sustain such prices.

    So when does the data price start to increase?

    Hard to say at this time.

    Given that incremental data customer addition seems to have plateaued, what will Idea do to add data customers?

    Over the last financial year, 23-million Idea subscribers have upgraded to smartphones that support 3G or 4G. Only 11million of them are actually using broadband services. Out of Idea’s total base, 60-million users have smartphones but only 22 million use 3G or 4G platforms. Idea’s focus will be to convert the rest of these customers.

    Is Idea looking to sell its telecom towers?

    We have said we are consolidating all our towers in a single subsidiary. That is to increase operational efficiency, now that we have all regulatory clearances to do it. We have over 9,700 towers over 16,000 tenants, of which Idea is only counted as one on any tower. Beyond that, there is no plan to sell that I know of.
    The Economic Times

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