Our telecom operator earnings coverage is brought to you by OnMobile Global, India’s leading Mobile Value Added Services [VAS] company 20% of Uninor’s customers in India are active data users, Telenor CEO Jon Frederik Baksaas mentioned during the company’s earnings conference call for the quarter ended December 31, 2013. However these are more likely 2G data customers, since Uninor focuses only on providing basic services in voice, SMS and basic Internet and offer aggressive plans in these services. In November last year, Baksaas had mentioned that the 3G handset ecosystem in India is still not at the level where the market could suffice on 3G service and at this stage, 2G service is more than sufficient in the country. Earlier this month, Morten Karlsen Sorby, the nominated CEO of Uninor had also mentioned that the company is changing the way it is approaching selling data services to customers. It had announced plans to offer Facebook at Rs 0.5 per hour and Rs. 1 for a day of WhatsApp usage. Other notes from Telenor’s earnings conference call: - ARPU increased for the fifth straight quarter to Rs 106, which is up 17% year-on-year (YoY). Churn continues to decline and is currently at 4.5%, on par with the industry standards. - Telenor added a total 17 million subscriptions globally in 2013. The subscription growth was primarily from Asia driven by significant growth in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. There is still a significant potential for further growth. - EBITDA was positive in December due…
