World’s cheapest, biggest telecom market faces life-threatening crisis

From being the world’s cheapest and fastest growing market, India’s telecom sector is sputtering as it faces life-threatening liability running into billions of dollars.

This crisis may alter the character of an industry that has already seen a painful price war destroying profits and push several operators out of the market.

The Supreme Court order for including non-core revenue in telecom groups’ gross adjusted revenue — the figure on which the levies are charged — revived the rivalry between the old operators and Mukesh Ambani’s low-cost upstart Reliance Jio during 2019. But there are signs of a truce with the rival camps agreeing to raise tariffs and also favouring regulator’s intervention in fixing floor or minimum tariffs.