After Jio's deep discounts, telecom incumbents now in recovery mode

After two quarters of pain, revenues of telecom operators are expected to stabilise in the June quarter, estimate brokerages. While revenue growth will still be elusive, the earlier sharp cuts in realisations are expected to reduce, with companies reporting flat to marginal drops in revenue. While this is nothing to write home about, it would be much better than the prior two quarters of a 6 to 7 per cent revenue declines each on a sequential basis. Rohit Chordia of Kotak Institutional Equities believes disrupter Reliance Jio’s offers having moved from free to ‘deep discount’ presents incumbents with a chance to put up a better fight and stem the massive revenue erosion seen in the second half of 2016-17. He says the incumbents seem to have fought well, with competitive offerings. And, this is likely to mean better sequential revenue change, compared to the December and March quarters. While Chordia expects revenues to fall 1.4-1.7 per cent in the June quarter, Vivekanand Subbaraman of Ambit Capital estimates 1 per cent revenue growth each for Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel.  Financial Astrology Tips