(By Apurva Chaudhary & Vikas SN) Telecom operator Reliance Communications (RCOM) had reported a total 31.1 million data customers for the quarter ending June 30, 2013 (Q1-FY14), up 5.8% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), of which 7.7 million are 3G customers, which saw 7% growth QoQ. Here are some notes from the investor conference call: - Current status of Indian telecom sector: Gurdeep Singh said that the Indian telecom sector is witnessing consolidation as many operators have either exited the business or reduced their footprints. The company expects the sector to have only 4-5 pan India telcos in the coming years. The competitive intensity is also apparently lowering and there are indications that pricing power is coming back to operators, evident from recent tariff hikes and reduction of free and promotional minutes by operators. - GSM and Data revenue is up by 6.3% quarter on quarter and now contributes to 67% of its wireless revenues. - During the quarter, RCOM completed the migration of most of its customer base to the headline tariffs of 1.5 paisa per second from the previous 1.2 paisa per second. It also increased its prepaid tariffs by 20% on both GSM and CDMA platforms and reduced its promotional & concessional offers by up to 65%. Due to this, the revenue per minute (RPM) increased by 4% during the quarter, and is now at 45.7 Paisa per minute, which the company says is the highest in the industry. - Responding to an analyst question, Singh mentioned that they are halfway through migrating all its customers to the new commitment plans and the process is…
