State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam’s (BSNL) consolidated net loss has risen to Rs 1,569 crore in the October-December quarter, from Rs 1,481 crore in the preceding quarter.
The higher sequential loss during the quarter can largely be attributed to increase in salary bills, depreciation and amortisation expenses, licence and spectrum fee, loss allowance of disputed bills, bad debt write-off, and expenses on construction contracts, among others.
Employee benefit expenses, which account for over 30% of the total expenses of Rs 6,631 crore, rose 7% sequentially to Rs 2,011 crore.
On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, the company’s net loss narrowed from Rs 1,868 crore in the corresponding quarter last year largely due to a fall in finance costs.
In the October-December quarter, BSNL’s revenue from operations bucked the declining trend of the last two quarters, and rose 11.6% quarter-on-quarter to Rs 4,549 crore. The growth was primarily led by leased lines and fiber infra businesses, broadband, and enterprise segments. On a y-o-y basis, the revenue rose 2.5%.
For the nine-month ended December, the company’s revenue rose 1.2% to Rs 12,915 crore, the financial statements showed. Loss narrowed to Rs 4,520 crore in April to December period from Rs 5,457 crore in the same period year ago.
About 12 out of 30 circles reported a fall in revenue for BSNL during the quarter, sources in the know said. These 12 circles include Gujarat, Karnataka, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, parts of North-East, Telangana, Andaman & Nicobar, Uttar Pradesh (West), and Kerala.
In a recent letter after the results, chairman and managing director PK Purwar said, “Our investments and efforts following the revival packages, have been directed in removing the constraints in service delivery, augmenting network resources and transforming our businesses and operational processes.”
“I am pleased to note, that with diligent efforts of all employees of BSNL, green shoots are beginning to show,” Purwar said, adding the six circles — Punjab, Karnataka, Telangana, Gujarat, Andaman & Nicobar, and J&K, which have been consistently showing weakness in revenues, will have to work on war footing.
“Even while we are rolling out indigenous 4G and 5G services, there is a lot of scope for revenue generation in all existing services that BSNL provides,” Purwar said in the letter. A copy of the letter was reviewed by FE.
Even as the BSNL reported an increase in revenues, amongst the segments, it continued to post a weak performance in cellular business. Revenue from the cellular business that accounts for nearly 42% of BSNL’s topline fell 6.5% y-o-y to Rs 5,252 crore in the nine months ended December. Revenue from the enterprises business fell 11% y-o-y to Rs 3,050 crore in the nine months period. Broadband business grew 14% to Rs 2,743 crore.
“BSNL is sinking deep into the crisis due to denial of timely launching of BSNL’s 4G and 5G services,” said P Abhimanyu, general secretary of BSNL Employees Union (BSNLEU), in a letter to telecom secretary Neeraj Mittal, on Friday.
He said that BSNL was not allowed to upgrade its existing 49,300 3G BTSs into 4G BTSs. “Had this been allowed, BSNL could have started its 4G service at least 3.5 years ago,” he said.
“Tens of lakhs of customers are leaving the Company every month due to the non-availability of high speed data service with the Company. Jio and Airtel have already rolled out their 5G service. However, BSNL has not even started its 4G service,” Abhimanyu said, adding that the government should take alternative measures so as to ensure the launching of BSNL’s 4G service without any delay.
BSNL has been continuously losing mobile subscribers for nearly two years now as of November end, according to data by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
The company’s subscriber base was at 91.9 million as of November end. The company has lost 22.4 million subscribers in the last two years, till November.
Last month, Purwar told FE that BSNL is targeting a 20% mobile subscriber market share in the country by year end. The company is looking to achieve the same by ramping its 4G rollout using indigenous stack during the year, focusing on improving the quality of services with 100% network uptime, as well as through marketing initiatives to increase subscribers count.
“The target (of 20% market share) is practically possible. It depends on the quality of our services and how fast we rollout 4G and 5G services,” Purwar had said. “Our customers are looking forward to our 4G services and our product is getting upgraded. The trust of the people is with BSNL,” Purwar added.
