TRAI Mulls Over Per Second Billing – Telecom Stocks Crash On Possibility Of Lower Revenues
Well if a marketing move can be a ‘Game Changer’ and if a marketing tactic can change the way the Industry works then Tata Docomo has done exactly that! Not too long ago Tata Docomolaunched its per second billing tariff plan which took the market by storm and it gained 1 million subscribers in the Maharashtra circle in less than a month.
Now it seems TRAI has taken a liking to this new way of calculating billing and is all set to ask operators to charge customers on a per-second basis so that consumers can enjoy the benefit of paying only for their usage. A study conducted by HSBC Securities states that potential losses on account of the per-second-billing model could be as high as 10-15% of the telecom industry revenues.
Given the already existing competition and the upcoming international pressure with 3G on the anvil and new operators gearing to rollout their services it was only natural to see telecom stocks slide downwards. Today morning telecom players like Bharti and Reliance saw a 10% slide in their stocks. Bharti Airtel’s shares were down 9.1% at 363.80 rupees and Reliance Communications fell 12.1% to 263.95 rupees in a market down just 0.6 percent.
All in all this news is great for the consumer as this kind of ruling would be beneficial for consumers who are price sensitive. It may also create a much needed push by operators in promoting data and content downloads and VAS players to increase revenues and VAS may see some light (and better revenue share) at the end of the day. All in all this seems like a great move if it does get implemented by TRAI. What we are still waiting for though is the 3G rollout which seems to be delayed for another 3 months! Bah!
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