Bharti Airtel posts ₹15,933 crore loss in Q1 on massive AGR-related provision

NEW DELHI, July 29: Bharti Airtel Ltd on Wednesday posted a consolidated net loss of ₹15,933 crore in the April-June quarter as the company undertook a massive ₹11,746 crore charge, primarily for incremental provision and interest related to Supreme Court’s order on adjusted gross revenue definition last year.

In the corresponding quarter last year, the communications giant had posted a consolidated loss of ₹2,866 crore.

“Consequently, without prejudice and on prudence, during the quarter ended June 30, 2020 the (Bharti Airtel) group has further recorded an incremental provision of ₹107,444 million, including net interest on total provision created considering interest rate as per the affidavit filed by DoT on March 16, 2020 with effect from the date of Court Judgement," the company said in a filing with exchanges.

Operationally, the company had a strong quarter despite the covid-19 pandemic causing an unprecedented disruption.

Consolidated revenue from operations grew 15.4% year-on-year to ₹23,939 crore.

More importantly, Bharti Airtel reported a second straight quarter of positive operating income for its core business of mobile services in India at ₹165 crore. The business clocked revenue of ₹12,877 crore for the quarter, up 18.5% yoy.

The company’s average revenue per user for India mobile operations were ₹157 per user per month, slightly higher than the ₹154 in the March quarter. With increased focus on attracting high-value 4G customers, Bharti Airtel has managed to increase its revenue metrics, and now commands a higher ARPU than even rival Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.

While Reliance Jio will report its April-June earnings on Thursday, in January-March it had posted an ARPU of ₹130.6 per user per month.

During April-June, the company recorded a “slower" 2 million net additions in the number of 4G customers at 138.3 million due to the stringent covid-related lockdown in April and also in first half of May.

With most employees working from home, and with limited fibre internet penetration, data usage per subscriber reached the highest-ever level of 16.3 GB per month, up 73% yoy.

“We are going through an unprecedented crisis caused by COVID. Despite this, our teams have served the country well and kept our customers connected. Data traffic growth surged by 73% YoY even as 4G net additions slowed down to 2 million caused by supply chain shocks in the device eco system," Gopal Vittal, Bharti Airtel’s chief executive officer for India and South Asia, said in a statement.

In an October ruling, the Supreme Court had upheld DoT’s definition of AGR and asked mobile operators to pay levies based on that definition, along with interest on the principal amount and penalty.

While the Department of Telecommunications had estimated Bharti Airtel’s dues at ₹43,980 crore, including the dues of Telenor India, it had initially asked all operators to do a self-assessment of dues. Bharti Airtel had pegged its dues to the DoT at ₹13,004 crore, and paid the entire amount plus an extra ₹5,000 crore to cover an differences.

However, it received a massive setback in March after the Supreme Court shot down the telecom ministry’s self-assessment directive and asked the government to stick to its original demand.

India bans 47 clones of Chinese apps banned earlier

NEW DELHI, July 27: The Information and Technology Ministry on Friday banned 47 apps, which are clones or variants of Chinese-linked 59 apps earlier banned in June.

A month since the last ban, sources in the Ministry said that “the problem is with the operational ethics of certain apps. This is an ongoing process. If apps qualify under the same grounds of operational ethics, then they will also come under the scanner.” The source said “operational ethics” refers to data going back to the Chinese government.

Citing the “emergent nature of threats” from mobile applications, including popular ones of Chinese origin such as TikTok, ShareIt, UCBrowser, Club Factory and CamScanner, the Centre had banned 59 apps on June 29 based on information that they were engaged in activities “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity”, defence, security and public order.

Among the apps banned under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act are some of the most downloaded in the country, with Indians making up the largest chunk of many user bases.

The move was seen as a retaliatory step amid the tense border standoff between India and China that led to 20 Indian Army personnel being killed on June 15. State-owned telecom companies also moved to keep Chinese vendors out of their network upgradation tenders.

“The Ministry of Information Technology has received many complaints from various sources, including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India,” the government had said in a statement on June 29.

“The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern, which requires emergency measures,” it said.

“On the basis of these and upon receiving of recent credible inputs that such Apps pose threat to sovereignty and integrity of India, the Government…has decided to disallow the usage of certain Apps, used in both mobile and non-mobile Internet enabled devices,” it said.

The firms were asked to clarify their data-sharing norms under a Chinese law that requires companies of Chinese origin to share data with that country’s intelligence agencies, irrespective of where they operate. Additionally, the government is expected to ask companies without a presence in India to appoint a local grievance officer.

NCSC head Rajesh Pant said after the June ban: “We have technical means of finding out where the data is going, what the hidden codes are. Based on these findings and an accumulation of complaints, this decision has been taken in a whole-of-government approach…”

Asked about concerns over Chinese retaliation, he said: “I am not worried about any backlash by anyone.” On some of the applications listed not being “Chinese-owned”, Pant said: “The company may be registered in Singapore but the servers are in China and China is collecting the data.”

Asus launches ‘most powerful’ smartphone ROG Phone 3

NEW DELHI, July 22: Asus has finally launched its third-generation of gaming smartphone globally, the ROG Phone 3. This comes as an upgrade to last year’s ROG Phone 2. However, most of the upgrades are on the inside rather than outside. Design-wise the smartphone seems to build on the same design that was carried by ROG Phone 2.

However, it seems sleeker and polished this time. What makes this smartphone special is that it among the first to bring 144Hz refresh rate screen and sport Qualcomm’s recently announced Snapdragon 865+ processor. This technically makes it the ‘most powerful’ smartphone till date.

There are a bunch of accessories too that have been launched for the ROG Phone 3.

The handset's 16GB+512GB model costs EUR 1,099 while the 12GB+512GB model costs EUR 999. The 8GB+256GB variant is priced at EUR 799. In India, the firm will be launching two variants only - 8GB+128GB and 12GB+256GB. While the 8GB+128GB variant costs ₹49,999, the 12GB+256GB is priced at ₹57,999. Sales will begin August 6 via Flipkart.

The ROG Phone 3 boasts of a 6.59-inch FHD+ AMOLED panel with 10-bit HDR10+ support and 144Hz refresh rate. It also claims to deliver 1ms of response time while the touch latency has been reduced to 25ms. As we mentioned above, powering this gaming smartphone is the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ processor with 3.1GHz clock speed, Adreno 650 GPU, up to 16GB LPDDR5 RAM and UFS3.1 inbuilt storage.

Being a gaming smartphone, the ROG Phone 3 features speakers that now has 7 magnets for lesser distortion. The firm has partnered with Swedish firm Dirac as well for improving its speakers. Adding to that is the 3rd generation GameCool system, which now has 6X larger heatsink, redesigned Copper 3D vapor chamber and a larger graphite film to keep things cool.

Also, the touch sensitive ultrasonic Air Triggers 3 with haptic feedback now supports both sliding, swiping and the possibility to divide each button in two partitions for tapping. This means you get up to four Air Triggers in ROG Phone 3. Even while not gaming, you can use Air Triggers 3 for enabling different features.

Furthermore, you get side-mounted Type-C ports like before so you can plug in the charging cable without having to adjust your hand while gaming. Asus says it also works with USBC to HDMI, USB-C headphones or the AeroActive Cooler 3.

And finally, the X-Mode now allows you to set a wider variety of performance parameters, from CPU/GPU performance to touch sensitivity settings and display refresh rate. And those who like to customise the touch, display, network based settings and more, they always have the Armoury Crate for it.

On the camera front, ROG Phone 3 includes 64-megapixel Sony IMX686 sensor Quad Bayer technology and f/1.8 aperture + 13-megapixel 125-degree ultra-wide camera + 5-megaixel macro camera with f/2.0 aperture. At the front, there is a 24-megapixel f/2.0 camera. The smartphone even has the ability to record 8K resolution videos at 30fps.

Running Android 10, Asus ROG Phone 3 weighs 240 grams and has 6000mAh battery with 30W fast charging tech onboard.

Like last time, Asus has launched a bunch of accessories for ROG Phone 2 as well. You get ROG Kunai 3 Gamepad, TwinView Dock 3, Mobile Desktop Dock 2 for connecting desktop peripherals via multiple ports, The Professional Dock for connecting ROG Phone 3 to a HDMI display and two more USB devices, ROG Clip for attaching the phone to PS4, Xbox or Stadia controller, Lighting Armor Case and AeroActive Cooler 3.

United Arab Emirates launches Hope mission to Mars

TOKYO, July 20: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched a spacecraft to Mars, making it the first Arab country to do so. The unmanned probe – called the Emirates Mars Mission or Hope – launched from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center at 6:58 a.m. local time and has now begun a seven-month journey to the red planet. Hope will spend at least two years in orbit around Mars with a possible further two-year extension.

Estimated to cost around $200m, Hope will orbit Mars between 20,000 and 43,000 km from the surface. From there it will investigate the Martian atmosphere, studying daily and seasonal changes in the climate as well as analysing hydrogen and oxygen in Mars’ atmosphere and why the gasses are being lost into space.

The mission carries three main instruments: two spectrometers – one operating in the infra-red and the other in ultraviolet – and an imager that will study the lower atmosphere at visible and ultraviolet wavelengths.

A UAE-led Mars mission was first mooted in 2014 with the aim of arriving at Mars in 2021 – timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the UAE’s independence from the UK. Funded by the UAE Space Agency, Hope is a collaboration between the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai, which will oversee the mission, and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado, Boulder, which built and tested most of the craft.

“Hope will capture the ebbs and flows of weather on Mars to a degree that wasn’t possible before,” says LASP director Daniel Baker. “It’s a showcase for how space exploration has become an increasingly international endeavour.”

Indeed, Hope is the first of three Mars craft that will be taking off this month. China is planning to launch Tianwen-1 on 23 July. This mission will consist of an orbiter, lander and rover and will, among other things, measure the water and ice content on Mars. Then on 30 July, NASA is scheduled to launch Perseverance – a robotic rover to find signs of ancient, extinct life. Perseverance will also release a small experimental helicopter called Ingenuity, which will attempt short flight in the Martian atmosphere.

Airtel partners with Verizon

NEW DELHI, July 14: Bharti Airtel announced on Tuesday it has partnered with Verizon* to launch BlueJeans video-conferencing service in India to serve business customers in the world’s second largest internet market.

The video conferencing service, branded as Airtel BlueJeans in India, offers “enterprise-grade security” (which includes encrypted calls, ability to lock and password protect a meeting and generate randomized meeting IDs), a cloud point presence in India to enable low latency, HD video and Dolby Voice, and can accommodate up to 50,000 participants on a call.

Gopal Vittal, chief executive of Airtel, said in a call with reporters Tuesday that the Indian telecom operator is exploring ways to bring Airtel BlueJeans to home customers as well, though he cautioned that any such offering would take at least a few weeks to hammer out.

Airtel BlueJeans is being offered to businesses at no charge for the first three months, after which the video conferencing service will be offered at a “very competitive” price, said Vittal. Airtel will offer customized pricing plans for large businesses and small businesses, he added.

Airtel, the third largest telecom operator in India with 300 million subscribers, already maintains a partnership with G Suite and Cisco Webex, and Zoom. However, Vittal said that its collaboration with Verizon was “special” and enabled it to host data in India itself.

Verizon acquired BlueJeans in April this year. At the time, BlueJeans had over 15,000 business customers. Hans Vestberg, chief executive of Verizon, said on Tuesday that the American telecom giant was hopeful that Airtel BlueJeans would make major inroads in the Indian market, though he declined to share any figures.

Vestberg said Verizon is open to extending this partnership with Airtel to serve the Indian telecom operator’s business in African market, though both are currently focused on serving clients in India.

Tuesday’s announcement comes as video conferencing services have gained impressive momentum in India in recent months. Zoom app, which is also available to consumers, has already amassed over 35 million monthly active users in the country, according to mobile insights firm App Annie — data of which an industry executive shared with TechCrunch.

Reliance Jio Platforms, the top telecom operator in India with nearly 400 million subscribers, launched its video conferencing service JioMeet earlier this month. JioMeet is currently available to both consumers and business customers at no charge and a session on the service can last for up to 24 hours.

“We know we are not the first to launch a video conferencing in India, but we are confident that our differentiated offerings and brand value would stand out,” said Vittal.

Airtel BlueJeans, which includes BlueJeans’ Meetings, Events, Rooms, and Gateway for Microsoft Teams functionalities, will go live in India Tuesday evening.

Google announces $10 billion investment to digitise India

NEW DELHI, July 13: Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday announced that the company would be investing nearly $10 billion into developing infrastructure and funding digital innovation in India over the next five to seven years.

Pichai was speaking at the sixth edition of Google for India conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology, where a host of measures to be undertaken by the tech giant such as expanding the scope of digital payments using Google Pay and developing low cost smartphones to transition feature phone users into smartphone users were also announced.

Before Pichai made the announcements, he also had a video-conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss Google’s ideas for India’s digital future.

“This morning, had an extremely fruitful interaction with @sundarpichai,” Modi tweeted.

“We spoke on a wide range of subjects, particularly leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs.”

The Prime Minister added that the two had also discussed “the new work culture that is emerging in the times of Covid-19”.

“We discussed the challenges the global pandemic has brought to areas such as sports. We also talked about the importance of data security and cyber safety,” Modi said on Twitter.

“I was delighted to know more about the efforts of @Google in several sectors, be it in education, learning, @_DigitalIndia, furthering digital payments and more,” he added.

Digital India has been one of the flagship schemes of the Central government. The Indian tech space further moved towards a ‘Make in India’ approach last month after the PM announced the ‘Atmanirbhar app challenge’.

“The Google for India digitization fund will invest $10 billion over the next 5-7 years in terms of equity, partnerships, operations and infrastructure development,” Pichai said on Monday. “This is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India and its digital economy. We will work towards enabling affordable internet access to every Indian in their own language.”

Pichai added that special attention would be paid to developing products and services relevant to India, empowering small business, and leveraging technology and artificial intelligence for areas like health and agriculture.

“We look forward to working with PM Modi and hope India will lead the next wave innovation,” Pichai said.

Union minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad added that the digital transformation of India has especially focused on ‘digital inclusion’.

“India’s app economy growing very powerfully and it is important not just to download but to upload apps as well,” said Prasad. “We are working towards developing one lakh digital villages across India and I would appreciate it if Google could pick a cluster of these villages and make them model villages in terms of skilling and delivery of telemedicine,” Prasad added.

Trai blocks Airtel, Vodafone Idea’s premium plans on violation of service norms

NEW DELHI, July 12: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has blocked Bharti Airtel Ltd’s Platinum and Vodafone Idea Ltd’s RedX premium plans that offer faster data speeds and priority services to high-paying postpaid customers, citing such schemes violate norms and could impact the quality of services for those outside the plans.

“It (the plans) is in violation of quality of service norms. It shortchanges the existing customers and it is also not clear what the new customers are being offered as the parameters are not quantifiable," a Trai official told Mint.

However, a senior telecom analyst said the two offers do not violate any rules relating to net neutrality as one can always offer “better services for expensive subscriptions."

A Bharti Airtel spokesperson did not comment on the Trai move but said, “We want to keep raising the bar for our postpaid customers in terms of service and responsiveness. This is an ongoing effort at our end."

Vodafone Idea did not respond until the time of running this story.

Bharti Airtel Ltd on 6 July had announced faster 4G data speeds for all its platinum customers - postpaid users paying ₹499 or above. The Sunil Mittal-led telecom major had said it has deployed advanced technologies for its ‘Priority 4G Network’ that will give its platinum subscribers preference on the network.

“The good news is that for all of you who are a part of Airtel Platinum, we have launched several new features to ensure an un-interrupted work from home experience. You now have access to Preferential 4G Network, which translates into higher data speeds," Bharti Airtel chief executive officer (CEO) Gopal Vittal had said in a communication to users.

Vodafone Idea had introduced its RedX plan in November 2019 for postpaid customers with a price of ₹999, offering up to 50% faster speeds and special services. The price of the plan was hiked by ₹100 in May.

According to experts, both offers are seen as efforts to widen the base of higher-paying users to drive up average revenue per user (ARPU).

Samsung launches its first Made in India smartwatch, Galaxy Watch Active2 4G Aluminium Edition

NEW DELHI, July 9: Samsung on Thursday announced the launch of Aluminium Edition of Galaxy Watch Active2 4G. It is also the company’s first made in India smartwatch. Samsung said that it is now going to make all of its Galaxy smartwatches in India.

"The Aluminium edition of Galaxy Watch Active2 4G is our most affordable 4G watch now. It's also the first smartwatch to be made in India. With Galaxy Watch Active2 4G, we have also started manufacturing our entire range of 18 smartwatches in India as part of 'Make for India' program," said Mohandeep Singh, Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, Samsung India in a release.

Samsung’s new wearable will be available in three variants – Cloud Silver, Aqua Black, and Pink Gold. Priced at ₹28,490, the wearable will go on sale in India on July 11. It will be available across retail stores, Samsung Opera House, Samsung.com, and other e-commerce platforms. The company is also bundling a 10% cashback and 6 months of no-cost EMI offers until July 31, 2020.

In terms of specifications, Samsung Galaxy Watch Active2 4G Aluminium Edition measures 44.0 x 44.0 x 10.9 mm. It weighs about 30 grams.

The smartwatch comes with a 1.4-inch 360x360 AMOLED Display with Corning Gorilla Glass DX+. It runs on the Tizen operating system. For performance, Samsung Galaxy Watch Active2 4G Aluminium Edition has 1.5GB of RAM and 4GB built-in storage.

Connectivity options include Embedded SIM with 4G LTE, BT v5.0, WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz, NFC, GPS & Glonass. It comes with a bunch of sensors such as Accelerometer, Barometer, Gyro Sensor, HR Sensor, and Light Sensor. For durability, it offers 5ATM + IP68 & MIL-STD-810G certifications.

The Galaxy Watch Active2 4G also comes with 39 workout trackers built-in with many focusing on indoor workouts. Samsung has also partnered with Spotify to easily browse through their music and podcasts on Spotify.

Airtel plans to launch its own video conferencing service

NEW DELHI, July 5: Bharti Airtel is planning to launch its own unified video conferencing tool for start-ups and enterprises to take on the likes of Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Microsoft Team.

"We are close to launching several enterprise-grade products including a unified video conferencing tool very shortly," a person close to Airtel's plan said, adding that initial plan is to launch to product for enterprises but the telco may look at offering it to regular customers after seeing the uptake.

The video conferencing product will be more differentiated from existing offerings like Zoom, MS Teams, and Google Hangout, the person said.

The Sunil Mittal-led telecom operator will be focusing on localization and security as the key differentiators for its latest video conferencing product. "Airtel is focusing on high levels of security as the USP of the product given the growing debate around cybersecurity as people work from home," the person said.

“A lot of customers do ask questions around what’s happening to our data and where am I being served from? One of the key benefits with Airtel will be data localization and security. This will also mean better video and voice quality for the customers," the person added.

The video conferencing tool will work across mobile and desktops and will use the latest AES 256 encryption and multiple layers of authentication.

This comes at a time when it's bigger rival Reliance Jio has already launched its own video conferencing service, JioMeet, which is free to use.

The Indian government is also pushing local start-ups and companies to develop local video conferencing apps and services. The Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India has already initiated a "Made in India" Video Conferencing Innovation Challenge, which is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ‘Local for Vocal’ call to become self-reliance in various sectors.

The Ministry, which received numerous applications for participation, has shortlisted 10 prototypes across India.

"We believe it might be a little late in the day to be starting such applications offerings when similar applications across the world have become extremely strong in their offerings and have a critical installed base of users," said Sanchit Vir Gogia, CEO and Founder of Greyhound.

While undoubtedly this is a great way to remind the world of the Indian prowess in technology and its abilities, but one ought to be careful and thoughtful about the money that is being invested in the direction it’s taking, Gogia added.

Gogia added that such products require continuous investments in research and development and improvement in future functionality which means that any company investing in such services and offerings ought to be dedicated to that space for a long time to come.

Airtel already bundles a range of video conferencing solutions along with 4G, MPLS, and FTTH connectivity. It already has partnerships with Zoom, Cisco WebEx, and Google Hangouts Meet under its "Work@Home" solutions for Enterprises.

The telco serves over 2500 large enterprises along with over 500,000 MSMEs in the country.

advertisements