Bharti Airtel plans to list Airtel Payments Bank, Telecom giant, Bharti Airtel is planning to list its unit, Airtel Payments Bank, according to a report by Economic Times. The company’s data centre business could also be monetized at some stage, it added.
The official, quoted in the report said, “Airtel is not looking at a premium pricing for its 5G services, which is being rolled out at a rapid pace, the telco doesn’t need the 700 MHz band in the future as well for its next gen services.”
He added that currently, only 12% of the devices support 5G in India and that significant revenue opportunities from captive networks were still sometime away, with use cases still being developed and trialled. Join Our Telegram Channel
Earlier this year, Airtel Payments Bank got categorised as a scheduled bank by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the second schedule of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934.
Launched in January 2017, Airtel Payments Bank currently has around 50 million users on the platform and about Rs 20,000 crore in gross merchandise value (GMV), with annualised revenue at around Rs 1,000 crore. Airtel owns 70% in the unit, with the balance held by Bharti Enterprises.
“It’s (Airtel Payments Bank) a profitable company, it’s doing well and growing rapidly. Further, that’s an option as per the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) license that at some stage we are expected to list,” the official said. Join Our Instagram Channel
Speaking about the data consumption on 5G, the official said it’s too early to come to any conclusions as the network rollout is at a nascent stage. “But by February, we can have a fair idea about data consumption and can share some colour on it in the Q4 results,” the official said.
Currently, about 20% of the revenues come from enterprise but in the coming few years, the company is targeting surpassing global telcos which on average get 22-23% of their revenue from the business.
“Currently, the enterprise market is around Rs 45,000 crore but there is an adjacent market worth Rs 50,000 crore, which is yet to be tapped,” the official said.
Airtel is betting big on its home business to improve its average revenue per user (ARPU), which stood at Rs 190 in the fiscal second quarter ended September.