Coronavirus outbreak may create fresh revenue opportunities for Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea

Kolkata: A prolonged covid-19 pandemic over the next two quarters could be a silver lining for India’s three private telcos, analysts and industry experts said. The move by companies across India asking staff to increasingly work from home, they said, is slated to boost data consumption and trigger a sharp jump in demand for home broadband and virtual private network (VPN) services in the coming weeks, creating fresh enterprise revenue opportunities for Reliance Jio Infocomm, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.

Analysts estimate around a 15% sequential jump in data consumption levels in each of the next two quarters, which would translate in at least 5% on-quarter revenue growth for telcos. Consumers are also likely to increase the frequency of mobile recharges as they are expected to use up their data allocations more rapidly in such a scenario.