Tata comes from nowhere to top Indian subscriber adds

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released subscriber numbers for August, and somehow Tata Teleservices topped the net add list.

It still doesn’t quite have the numbers to compete at the top of the overall rankings, but if the subscriber numbers from August are anything to go by, Airtel has bagged itself a nice acquisition. In terms of the overall performance of the notable names in the market:

Last month, Bharti Airtel agreed to acquire the ‘struggling’ mobile business of Tata Teleservices, in what is looking like some great business now. As part of the deal, all past liabilities and dues are to be settled by Tata, while Airtel would absorb the 40 million customers of Tata. According to TRAI, this number has now swelled by 11% without Airtel having to do a thing, taking market share to 3.96%.

Unsurprisingly, Airtel still stands at the top of the market share rankings with 23.7%, while Vodafone and Idea take two and three with 17.55% and 16.11%. The combination of these two would certainly make a monster business, but dropping a combined 5 million customers is a worry. We’re not too sure how many customers were exchanged between to two, but 5 million is still a very large number. Reliance Jio’s market share now stands at 11.19%.

Elsewhere in the Indian market, American Tower has been named as the acquirer of the standalone tower businesses of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.

The pair have separately agreed to sell their respective standalone tower businesses in India to ATC Telecom Infrastructure Private Limited for an aggregate enterprise value of $1.2 billion. The combined portfolio has approximately 20,000 towers with a combined tenancy ratio of 1.65x. As part of the agreement, the trio have agreed to treat each other as long-term preferred partners.