JPMorgan : India Telecoms April GSM net adds dip but Idea delivers a strong month

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India Telecoms
April GSM net adds dip but Idea delivers a strong
month


• India’s April GSM net adds came in at 11.1m as per data from
COAI. This is a 23% M/M decline and in-line with trends seen in
April of prior years where M/M declines have ranged from -15% to -
27% over the past 5 years. Of the 3.4m fewer net adds in the month,
Vodafone, Bharti and BSNL contributed the sharpest declines.
• Idea delivers strong net adds: Idea Cellular saw 2.45m net adds in
April, which while down 9% M/M was slightly ahead of both Bharti
and Vodafone’s net adds numbers in April of 2.41m each. Idea’s net
adds have tracked well for the past few months with the run rate in the
quarter to March and furthermore according to the VLR data (active
subs) for March, Idea is at 93%. Vodafone’s net adds declined 34%
M/M while Bharti’s are down 25%. BSNL’s net adds halved M/M to
below 700K vs. 1.4m in March. More details in the table below.
• “New” telcos at ~15-20% of net adds driven by Uninor: Grouping
Uninor, Videocon, S Tel and Etisalat as the “new” players, we note that
they account for 18% of net adds. They contributed 6.1% of India’s
GSM sub base up from 4.3% six months ago. However it is important
to note that the VLR ratios (active data) for these telcos range from
34% (Etisalat) to a maximum of 53% (Uninor), well below the industry
average of 71%.