The pecking order of telecom operators could be set for a change. It could no longer be decided on the basis of subscriber numbers alone. Industry officials and analysts have started articulating the need to broad-base ranking parameters, by including revenue, market-share, average realisation per user (Arpu) and minutes of usage.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is open to examining the option. Currently, the regulator publishes monthly subscriber numbers and a quarterly report summarising adjusted gross revenue and revenue-share licence fee paid.

For over a decade, telecom players focused exclusively on adding subscribers, primarily through lower tariffs. With some of the lowest tariffs worldwide, the Indian telecom market is also one of the toughest, sparking the need for better ranking parameters based on performance and efficiency metrics which better evaluate overall revenues of operators.

Voice revenues are plunging. In April-June, the telecom pecking order changes if it is based on Arpus. Bharti Airtel retains the top slot with Arpus at Rs 215, followed by Vodafone-Essar at Rs 191, Idea Cellular at Rs 182, TTSL and TTML at around Rs 154, Reliance Communications at Rs 130 and BSNL at Rs 99. However, by subscriber figures, Bharti is No.1, followed by RComm, Vodafone-Essar, TTSL, Idea and BSNL.

?For us, what matters most is the revenue market share and that’s on the rise in our case,? Sanjay Kapoor, CEO of Bharti Airtel had told FE in an earlier interview.

?With the maturing of the telecom industry, the earlier surrogates need to be discarded and the true benchmark ? revenue ? needs to be used to measure each operator?s efficiency in utilising funds,? Rajat Mukarji, chief corporate affairs officer, Idea Cellular told FE.

Agrees Prashant Singhal, telecom analyst, Ernst & Young: ?The best parameter would be to provide the minutes of usage of each company on a monthly basis. This would best determine the growth of a company since traffic means most. Arpus could be risky from the point of regulatory compliance since the companies would have to double-check the figures every quarter while reporting to stock exchanges.?

Analysts said since operators now focus on revenue-generating customers, it makes sense to officially release subscriber figures along with Arpus, revenue market share and minutes of usage so that a more holistic scenario emerges. Investors and analysts also assess revenue and profitability of companies rather than subscriber numbers alone.

Though US, Japan and Western Europe still generate maximum revenues for global mobile companies, the latest study by Wireless Intelligence, a database on the global mobile market covering mobile operators and networks in 200 countries, ranks global mobile operators by total reported revenue and calculates group Arpu to provide an alternative measurement to their recent global operator ranking by subscriber connections.

In the latest rankings, the first two positions remain unchanged from Wireless Intelligence?s previous study with China Mobile at number one and Vodafone Group at No.2. However, though China Mobile has twice as many subscribers as Vodafone, its lead over the latter reduces significantly when measured in revenue terms ? since Vodafone generates much higher revenue per subscriber. Two other Chinese mobile operators also recede when measured by revenue: China Unicom at number five by connections drops to No. 20 by revenue, while China Telecom at No. 24 by connections fails to retain a No. 25 slot by revenue.

An analyst explained why Arpus are important: ?In the initial phase of an emerging market, the customers-to-connections ratio is 1:1. In other words, each customer uses only a single wireless connection ? which is a SIM card in GSM circles or a unique phone number for CDMA markets. As the telecom market enters its second phase of development, each user may own multiple connections. Despite this rising trend, the individual user base in such markets may not actually be saturated. Many circles in the Indian market are currently at this stage of development. In such complex scenarios, Arpu affords a more realistic indication about which mobile operators users use the most.?