Dialling destruction

In the June quarter, market leader Bharti Airtel cited regulatory changes as the reason for its poor performance—the regulator didn’t allow it to only sell combo packs bundling voice (on which telco margins are wafer-thin) and SMS (on which margins are high). In the September quarter the excuse, for the entire industry, my colleague Rishi Raj points out (http://goo.gl/TtDfT), is likely to be the changes in the way the regulator wants them to sell value-added services that make up 12% of revenues, roughly the same share as the PBT margin (profit before tax).

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