Vodafone India and Idea Cellular could be the most vulnerable to Reliance Jio Infocomm’s push for a 50% revenue market share (RMS) by FY2021, analysts and industry experts said, but added that the 4G entrant’s aggressive ambitions will not be a cakewalk.
Vodafone and Idea's relatively smaller on-ground 4G presence coupled with challenges of working around the complexities of their potential merger with possible cuts in capex spends over the next 12-to-15 months in the merger lead-up, could be big RMS drags, going forward, they said.
Some fear they may see their combined RMS shrink to under 20% from nearly 44% now. They though expect market leader Bharti Airtel to maintain a 30% RMS, albeit a tad lower than its present 33% level, on grounds that it is ahead both on 4G spectrum holdings and coverage versus its closest incumbent rivals.
In a recent presentation to analysts, Jio — owned by the country’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani — said it aims to corner half of India's mobile RMS and operating margins of 50% by FY2021.
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