To add 2 mn subscribers/month ahead: Bharti

Q: What is the revenue per minute picture? Has that softened a bit between last quarter and this quarter?

Gupta: A little bit, yes. Because we have now - 390, I think, is the ARPU and 478, versus some 406 and 475 – so a little bit of lowering on that. Part of it was also because of a change in the way we recognise the upfront payment on the lifetime products.

So it is over the life of the customer and because of the lower churn over the year - we are now recognising it over 24 months; we used to recognise it over 18 months. There is a Rs 70 crore revenue, which has come down because of that. So if you do that, there is a little bit. But not anything significant.

Q: RPUs at 0.81, do you see it stabilising or settling sub 0.8 or holding these kind of levels?

Kohli: As the competitive intensity grows, there will be some erosion. But I think, overall the customers are looking at our product, it has reached to affordable levels. I go around small towns and villages, customers don't  tell me that it is higher than their affordability limit. At the same time, I believe that we as a leader brand, we are able to command some premium in the market, so erosions will be there but nothing major.

Q: Do you see price points coming down further, the Vodafone-Hutch Rs 99 plan, has it sort of shaken up the market a bit?

Gupta: No, I don’t think that’s got to do with the price points, because the prices in that are actually higher. But we would love to see the realised rate coming down and a lot of that will have to do with the regulations.

It has been a long-standing demand of the market and the industry that the taxes which are there on this industry, need to rationalise and come down. And there is a very clear promise by every player that we will straight away pass it on to the customer. So if it is happening, I think it is most welcome. I do see some rationalisation taking place and price points too would come down.

Q: Do you expect MoUs to accelerate 2-3 quarters down the line once again?

Kohli: I am sure about it, I believe the customers in smaller towns and villages haven’t tested dailtone or any fixed line unlike metro customers. So they will definitely use it more. Mr. Akhil is right, maybe there is initial hesitation, which will get over in 2-3 months and they will start using well, not only voice SMS, but products like ringback tone etc also.

Q: You've had a great quarter on subscriber additions per month. Do you see the acceleration continuing or is it just because BSNL is absent from the market, which is a bonanza in this quarter?

Kohli: No, I think it has been a great start in a new year for us, the market has grown well for the first time. We have done about 5.7 million customers in the quarter, market is growing. Any one competitor not growing well is not an issue, because I think it is a very competitive market. We stick to our market growth strategy, we lead the market growth and I believe that customer addition should continue to grow very robustly.

Q: You see no let up in the acceleration for subscriber additions, going forward?

Kohli: We do not see any let up. I think metro markets like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore are keeping pace, I think we are seeing good growth here. B category circles are doing well, C category circles are doing much better, so I think acceleration should continue.

Q: Idea is getting into a newer circles, you have got Spice also in a few markets, do you think that when newer players enter new circles, there will be some kind of erosion away from market shares?

Kohli: We are not worried at all, we are as a company, child of competition, so we are used to this. Since we started the seven-eight player intensity in the metro cities, we are coping well, we are winning every day. So I believe that competition will further grow in the market and you will see that positive trend coming in as other operators come in to the new towns. 

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