The fight between Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio is now turning into an open war of words. After getting warned by regulator TRAI for excessive PoI congestion in eight circles, it was Airtel’s turn to return the warning back.
Agitated with the drop in Bharti Airtel’s profit, Bharti Airtel Global Chief Financial Officer Nilanjan Roy said,
“In the short to medium term, free offers will impact all stakeholders including government levies and taxes, lender with debt exposure of over Rs 400,000 crore to the industry.”
He pointed out that the free offers from Reliance Jio are affecting the whole telecom industry and can also adversely affect government’s revenue from the telecom sector.
Bharti Airtel, just like every other telecom company, is experiencing a serious fall in it’s profit after Reliance Jio’s inception. Nilanjan Roy, on behalf of his company, in a bid to explain the recent drop in profits, pointed out Reliance Jio to be the main reason behind it. He directly targeted the new telecom operator (Reliance Jio) and that it’s policies are hurting the whole of telecom industry. He said, “To say that we are living in interesting time would be an understatement. In India, the continuation of free pricing by a new operator has led to tsunami of traffic to the network impacting overall data revenue and voice realisation.”
Profits registered by Airtel in the third quarter of FY 2016-17 is company’s lowest since the past four years. Roy explained the drop in data customers and again stated a new telecom operator responsible for it.
This outburst from Airtel has come on the back of a warning issued to them by TRAI for excessive PoI congestion in eight circles. TRAI stated Idea Cellular and Vodafone have controlled their respective congestion levels well but said Airtel had failed to do so and might soon be facing action for the same. The frustration of falling profits was now doubled with this warning and Airtel subsequently lashed out at the government openly.
Airtel and all other cellular companies are facing a tough time altogether right now because of Reliance Jio. Is this warning an indication that Reliance Jio might well be getting scrapped off? Do let us know your take on this in the comments section below.