Experts believe this further reduces the struggling telcos’s chances of withstanding its over Rs. 53,000 crore AGR shock.VIL shares closed 0.6% lower at Rs. 3.42 on BSE on Monday.Goldman Sachs said Airtel’s stock may currently be pricing in an ARPU (average revenue per user) of Rs181, assuming one-third of Vodafone Idea’s subscribers move to the company over the next couple of years.Airtel shares were virtually unchanged, closing at Rs. 565 on BSE on Monday.If VIL indeed shuts down, Jio would need to launch another aggressive 4G featurephone offer to attract Vodafone Idea’s user base, many of which are still on 2G and 3G, who by default would otherwise move to Airtel that offers the legacy technologies, say experts.Sharma of SBICap Securities said, “Airtel might need to evaluate offering 4G handset subsidy to attract VIL’s 2G/3G users and get them to upgrade to 4G”, especially since it has been “underinvesting in 2G and is also shutting down 3G services nationally by March”.Experts added that Airtel and Jio have leverage issues, particularly Airtel, which, post a potential Rs. 35,586 crore AGR payout to the government, may not be able to bid aggressively in the next airwaves sale.Separately, they said if VIL were to shut down soon, and the government is eager to sell the company’s spectrum resources to Jio and Airtel for ensuring tele-density levels don’t crash, it may consider auctioning such airwaves at a sharp discount.

Source: Economic Times February 18, 2020 01:07 UTC