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Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Monday reported 466% surge in consolidated net profit (attributable to owners of the parent) at Rs 1,607 crore for the quarter ending June 30, 2022, boosted by subscriber additions. It reported net profit of Rs 284 crore in the year-ago period.

The company's consolidated revenue from operations rose 21% to Rs 32,805 crore in Q1FY23 as compared to Rs 27,064 crore in Q1FY22. Bharti Airtel's mobile services revenue in India grew 27% year-on-year to Rs 18,220 crore for the first quarter from Rs 14,305.6 crore.

The company's average revenue per user (ARPU) increased to Rs 183 in Q1FY23 as against Rs 146 in Q1FY22. ARPU of rivals Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea for the same period was Rs 175.7 and Rs 128, respectively.

The company said in November, when it announced tariff hikes, that mobile ARPU needed to be at Rs 200 and ultimately at Rs 300, for a financially healthy business model.

On Monday, the company's scrip on BSE closed nearly flat at Rs 704.35.

Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, said: “This has been another solid quarter. We continue to deliver strong and sustained growth at 4.5% sequentially. EBITDA margins are now at 50.6%. Our enterprise and homes business has strong momentum and delivered strong double digit growth, improving the diversity of the overall portfolio. Airtel’s strategy of winning with quality customers continues to yield good results with an industry beating ARPU at Rs 183.

"As India gets ready to launch 5G, we are well positioned to raise the bar on innovation. We are also confident of meeting the emerging needs of discerning customers looking for speed, coverage and latency. Our astute spectrum strategy over the last few years as we bolstered mid band spectrum is designed to deliver the best experience at the lowest total cost of ownership.”

The firm said its 4G customers rose by 20.8 million on an annual basis and by 4.5 million on a sequential basis.

Mobile data consumption rose by 16.6% YoY, consumption per mobile data customer at 19.5 GB per month, said Airtel.

"Airtel to lead India’s 5G revolution with acquisition of ideal spectrum bank at least cost for best 5Gexperience and 100x capacity enhancement; procured 19,867.8 MHz spectrum for Rs 43,040 crore in the recently concluded 5G spectrum," the company said in a stock exchange filing.

The company has been raising money to fund its digital ambitions, including developing home broadband, data centres, cloud adoption as it prepares to launch its next-generation 5G services in the country.

Indians are more optimistic than ever on the prospects of their country’s economic growth than they were six months ago but they are far from opening up their purses and spending as they did before the pandemic.

A look at the Reserve Bank of India’s consumer sentiment survey shows that optimism about the current situation as well as future outlook has increased over the past six months. That said, if we scratch the surface and look into sub-categories that form the headline indices, this optimism gives way to caution. Consumers may be more hopeful about employment and incomes but they are not ready yet to indulge in discretionary spending. That means India is yet to get her spenders that would boost the economic growth through demand. The following five charts lay out the good and the non-so-good parts of consumer sentiment:

The current situation index is now at its highest level since March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The future expectations index though is still below pre-pandemic levels but it is getting there. Economic growth has recovered smartly over the past one year from the impact of the pandemic. In fact, most high frequency indicators are well above their pre-pandemic levels. Consumption demand has revived, visible through the rebound in consumer durables, services and even personal loans of banks. This has led to consumers being hopeful about future employment prospects as well.

The government on August 8 introduced the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2022 in the Lok Sabha amid protests by opposition parties.

Power minister RK Singh said the bill would be sent to a standing committee for detailed discussion. Moneycontrol has exclusively reported on August 5 that the government is likely to introduce the much-awaited Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022, which aims to streamline the payment framework, empower regulators and encourage competition in the sector, this week.

The opposition parties protested against the Bill, citing that it will allow several power companies to distribute powers in any license area. They also said that it was against the interest of farmers.

Responding to the opposition, Minister Singh said that the bill will be discussed in detail in the standing committee. He also said that the bill makes no provision to stop electricity subsidies for farmers. 

The Bill proposes changes to allow operation of more than one power distributor in a supply area, which will give consumers the option to choose electricity suppliers and encourage competition. The minister said that this was first proposed in the 2003 bill.

The proposed amendments are to the Electricity Act, 2003 which was enacted to consolidate the laws relating to the generation, transmission, distribution, trading, and use of electricity and generally for taking measures conducive to the development of electricity.

“The amendments to the Act are also necessary in view of the importance of green energy for our environment in the context of global climate change concerns and our international commitments to increase the share of renewable energy. Further, it has become necessary to strengthen the regulatory mechanism, an adjudicatory mechanism in the Act and to bring administrative reforms through improved corporate governance of distribution licensees," the government said.

The Bill proposes that power distribution licensees will be allowed to use the networks of other licensees. This will boost competition as it will help new distributors to overcome infrastructure hurdles and also improve the efficiency of the power distribution network. 

The government also hopes to insert a new section that will enable the management of power purchase and cross-subsidy in case of multiple distribution licensees in the same area of supply.

The Bill also proposes to enable regulators to fix a minimum tariff ceiling to discourage unhealthy pricing wars among distributors and a maximum ceiling to ensure consumers are protected against price increase shock.

Among other amendments, the government is also making changes to strengthen the functioning of the National Load Despatch Centre for ensuring the safety and security of the grid and for the economic and efficient operation of the power system in the country.

Meanwhile, All  India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) said that lakhs of electricity employees and engineers from across the country have joined hands to observe a protest demonstration against the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022. The association is against the privatization of power distribution and believes that the bill will negatively impact the farmers and also lead to a rise in power bills for households. The association said in a statement that power sector employees and  engineers exercised their democratic right by boycotting their official duties and holding gate meetings in all the union territories and states like Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Assam, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Ladakh, among others. 

India’s plan to expand its corporate bond market faces an unexpected impediment because the regulator is considering tightening control of trading platforms that allow investments in company debt in just a few clicks.

While the proposed framework is designed to protect investors and is therefore being welcomed by some, a few of the proposals by the Securities and Exchange Board of India could actually prove counterproductive and hurt liquidity, according to experts who spoke to Bloomberg. That��s because the sale of unlisted debt would be banned, platforms would be forbidden to sell privately placed corporate notes on to non-institutional investors soon after acquiring them, and trades would need to be settled via routes that today are not commonly used.

Market participants have until Aug. 12. to give officials their input on the matter.

“The trade off is very often between creating depth in the market and ensuring investor protection,” said Shilpa Mankar Ahluwalia, a partner at law firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. “The regulator ideally needs to strike a fine balance between investor protection and innovation, also recognizing that online bond platforms have the potential to widen access and deepen the corporate bond market.”

Opening up India’s corporate bond market is an important part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pledge to almost double the size of the economy to $5 trillion by 2025. As it stands, the local-currency bond market offers easier access only for the top-rated issuers, with big local banks and brokers doing deals based on long-standing relationships.

Bond platforms, either start-ups or businesses backed by banks or brokers, have boomed in India with more than a dozen financial technology platforms emerging in the last three years, competing for a share of the $1.9 trillion market for time deposits. They mainly target individual investors with a promise of much higher interest rates by putting money into company debt, and allow for minimum investments that can be as low as 10,000 rupees ($126).

Easy access through an interface similar to that of online shopping websites and the prospect of higher returns can be appealing to novices. The platforms, though tiny, have grown more than six times over two years with debt mainly sold to non-institutional investors, Sebi said in a consultation paper last month.

Six-Month Lock-in

• Sebi proposes to bar platforms from selling privately placed corporate bonds to non-institutional investors within six months of allotment
• The proposal comes after the regulator found that in some cases the entire privately placed issue was sold to more than 200 investors within 15 days of allotment, making it more akin to a public issue
• “The regulator is concerned about private placements becoming shadow public offerings via distribution on online platforms given that the rules, compliance and disclosure requirements for a public offering are much more stringent and detailed,” said Shardul Amarchand’s Ahluwalia
• But Ankit Gupta, who founded BondsIndia.com, said institutions would be required to maintain a huge balance sheet to buy and hold notes for six months
• Because of this, Gupta said there’s a risk of platforms’ ability to participate in primary issuance will be limited, thereby affecting liquidity. He will reach out to the regulator for more clarity.

Trade Settlement

• Sebi has proposed transactions on these platforms be settled either through the debt segments of exchanges or through request for quote platforms
• The regulator found that in some cases these platforms accepted funds directly from the client, bypassing procedural norms
• But market participants argue the two routes suggested by Sebi aren’t regularly used by bigger participants to settle over-the-counter trades
• “In cases where platforms are settling trades through clearing corporation, the party that buys bonds credits money in clearing corporation’s account directly and the seller supplies the debt securities,” said Aditi Mittal, co-founder at IndiaBonds.com and director at one of India’s leading broker A.K. Capital Services Ltd., adding only if the deal matches, respective accounts are debited and credited
• “This system is working beautifully as nothing is paid into the platforms’ account. Hence, the concern regarding tweaking the settlement structure needs to be discussed and deliberated,” she said.