Reliance Jio tops AGR at ₹25,331 crore, Airtel’s growth leads Q1

Reliance Jio posted the highest adjusted gross revenue, on the basis of which the government calculates spectrum and licence fee, at ₹25,330.97 crore while Bharti Airtel saw its AGR grew at sharpest pace in March 2024 quarter, a report by sector regulator Trai said on Thursday.

Reliance Jio's adjusted gross revenue (AGR) grew by 10.21% during the latest January-March quarter from ₹22,985 crore in the same period a year ago.

Airtel's AGR grew by 13.25% to ₹20,951.91 crore in the March 2024 quarter from ₹15,500.36 crore a year ago.

Loss-making Vodafone Idea posted a marginal 2.22% year-on-year increase in AGR at ₹7,370.75 crore from ₹7,210.63 crore.

State-owned BSNL and MTNL posted declines of 4.41% and 13.78% in AGR to ₹1991.61 and ₹156.61 crore, respectively.

Overall, telecom service providers' gross revenue grew by 3.01% on a year-over-year basis to ₹87,926 crore and adjusted gross revenue grew by 9.25% in the March 2024 quarter.

Government collection from the service providers in the form of licence fee (LF) and spectrum usage charges (SUC) increased by over 10% to ₹6,506 crore on year-over-year (YoY) basis, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) report.

"Gross Revenue (GR), Applicable Gross Revenue (ApGR) and Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of the telecom service sector for the quarter ended March 2024 has been ₹87,926 crore, ₹83,945 crore and ₹70,462 crore, respectively," Trai Performance Indicator Report for March 2024 quarter said.

The YoY rate of growth in GR, ApGR and AGR in the quarter ended March 2024 over the same quarter in last year was 3.01%, 6.76% and 9.25%, respectively, the report said.

The licence fee collection increased by 9.28% to ₹5,637 crore in the March 2024 quarter from ₹5,159 crore in March 2023 quarter. The SUC increased by 15.11% to ₹869 crore from ₹755 crore on YoY basis.