Average revenue per user, the performance indicator that reveals how much a telco earns from a subscriber, fell by Rs. 94 for the largest cellular operator in India Bharti Airtel to Rs. 230 (less than $5) year on year; this is also down 8.7% from the previous quarter, double the 4 percent drop experienced by Idea Cellular, whose ARPU is at Rs. 200. Average realisation per customer per minute has also crashed to 52 paise, compared to the 51 paise recorded by Idea this quarter. Traffic on network have increased by 9.56 billion minutes. Details: Release | Financials | Quarterly Report | KPIs SMS Revenues Up; Churn At 6.5% Interestingly, SMS revenues as a percentage of total mobile revenues have increased to 6 percent from 4.9 percent in the previous quarter and 4.1 percent in the December 08 quarter. Non Voice Revenue, which includes Short Messaging Service (SMS), voice mail service, call management and other value added services like Hello Tunes, Music on Demand and Airtel Live, now contributes to 11 percent of Airtel's mobile revenues, up from 9.8% in the previous quarter and from 9.5% in the December 2008 quarter. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman & Managing Director, Bharti Airtel Limited, lends the tone of gravity to the situation in the earnings release issued, saying the sector is facing hyper competition and that Airtel is "maintaining its drive for internal efficiencies by leveraging its scale economics". The company now has a total of 120.23 million mobile customers and operates in…
