Government’s revenue generation from the telecom sector continues to decrease following the launch of Reliance Jio, and due to rising competition and consolidation. Top three telecom operators in the country Airtel, Idea and Vodafone have also reported a substantial drop in their revenues in Q4FY17. This subsequently leads to a lower amount of license fee and SUC collection, since levies/fees are calculated on the basis of telco earnings. Here is a lowdown of what TRAI said in its latest report which indicates license fee collection and telco performance. License Fee, SUC collection from telcos drop considerably License fee collection from the overall sector declined 9% Quarter-on Quarter (QoQ) to Rs 3,361 crore for the quarter ended March 2017 (Q4 FY17), from Rs 3,698 crore in quarter ended December 2016 (Q3 FY17). On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, license fee collection dropped by 13.19%, TRAI said. Currently, the DoT collects 8% of a telco’s adjusted gross revenue as ‘license fee’, this percentage could vary between 5-8% on the basis of each circle a telco operates in. Overall Gross Revenue reported by the telecom sector stood at Rs 63,315 crore and Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) stood at Rs 40,831 crore in Q4 FY17. This is a decline of 4.84% QoQ and 11.05% QoQ respectively. AGR is similar to Gross Revenue but includes properties installation charges, late fees, sale proceeds of handsets or towers, value added services, supplementary services, among others. Note that telcos had earlier challenged the definition of AGR in the Supreme Court and Telecom Disputes…
