Sunil Mittal says Telecom hemorrhage stops this year

India's troubled telecommunications sector may not recover this year, but will "stop" bleeding, billionaire magnate Sunil Bharti Mittal said.

"I would say that given the configuration of the field, 2019 should be a year of stopping the dreadful decline. Will it be a year of recovery? Maybe not, "said the president of Bharti Airtel Ltd. at BloombergQuint on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "It's a year where you need to invest more, penetrate more into the 4G market, compete in the new market, maintain market share, retain your best customer."

Mittal said that the only reason he was slightly unsure of a recovery was that Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. Mukesh Ambani dictated market prices. "Finally, a player plays a game at low prices and high subsidies. It must be his call. "

For the Indian telecommunications sector, 2018 has been a year of persistent suffering. Since the arrival of Ambani in the sector with Jio, its average business turnover, profitability and profitability of telecommunications have been declining, which has fostered consolidation.

The industry, which now includes three major players with similar customer bases, must now focus on increasing average revenue per user, Mittal said. He added that Ateltel had stopped fighting the tariff war and had also increased the lower rate. "There must be a minimum ARPU entering. Even for Reliance Jio, their minimum package is 50 Rs, there is nothing below that. So you will have to continue to take the lowest table. "

He said that people who "extract" a lot of data will have to start paying more in the long run. "They comfortably gave 500 to 800 Rs earlier. You will have to do the right segmentation, give them Netflix, give them Amazon [Prime], give them Zee and other content like Wynk music and get the ARPUs. And you will see in 2019 the upward trend of ARPUs, "he said, adding that the amount of these would increase depending on market forces.

Mittal said Bharti Airtel would consider raising capital as part of its debt reduction attempt and that a committee was set up to review the options. "And you will probably hear something from the board and the committee over the next few weeks. We will recapitalize the company.

He stated that Atel's ratio of 4 net debt to Ebitda was normal for the telecommunications sector, but that it would be more comfortable to reduce it. The company has already transferred $ 5 billion of debt to Africa, while $ 6 billion in India is owed to the Department of Telecommunications, which is payable over 16 years. The balance of market debt, worth $ 4 billion to $ 5 billion, will be paid through a recapitalization and sale of badets, such as tricks.

The chairman of the billionaire, whose company lost the top spot in the telecom market to Vodafone-Idea Ltd., said it would not focus on ranking but on seeking quality services.

"I do not think being number one or two matters. I think the important thing is that you have to be a viable and solid player, "said Mittal. "I have always given the example of Kotak Mahindra Bank. I do not know what number it is. But it's considered a leading bank. Excellent banking, excellent customer service, this should be our model among the three players, regardless of the number of customers you have.

Ambani modeled Reliance Jio on groups like Amazon Inc. and Walmart Inc., by Jeff Bezos, expanding its content and e-commerce empire.

Mittal said that he would not take this approach. "We do not want to invest in areas that we do not understand."

Instead, he said Bharti Airtel would focus on building partnerships with content providers and e-commerce companies. "We work in partnership with Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Zee and Eros. We are therefore becoming the partner of choice as a telecommunications company from which all content providers will play. That's our strategy, "he said. "And the same in e-commerce if that happens. There are enough e-commerce companies that are looking for us. "