Revenues of BSNL and MTNL falling steadily

Revenues of state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) have steadily deteriorated over the past three years and the current financial year is also expected to end negative for the two telecom firms.

BSNL saw its revenue fall from Rs32,842.30 crore in 20087-08 to Rs30,169.42  crore in 2008-09 and further to Rs27,913.44 crore in 2009-10. BSNL reported revenues of Rs13,823.96 crore for the first half of the current financial year (2010-11).

MTNL had revenues of Rs4,096.64 crore in 2007-08, which declined to Rs3,808.82 crore in 2008-09 and further to Rs3,285.76 crore in 2009-10. MTNL reported revenues of Rs1,877.84 crore for the first half of the current financial year (2010-11).

The decline in revenue has been due mainly to a churn of fixed line subscribers and fall in average revenue per user, with the paring of rates both by BSNL and MTNL in the face of intense competition in the market, minister of state for communications and information technology Sachin Pilot informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply.

BSNL has now restructured its organisation and strengthened its marketing, sales and distribution channels. It is also making efforts to improve customer care. BSNL has entered value added services and other streams like 3G, broadband and data centre services for increasing revenue.

It is also trying to improve efficiency and earnings by leveraging information technology. BSNL is now looking to tap enterprise market by catering to high value customers he said.

MTNL, on its part, has launched several new services like 3G, 3G data card, internet protocol television (IPTV), voice over internet protocol (VOIP) and removable user interface module (RUIM) cards etc for enhancing its revenue.

It has also introduced new services for attracting more customers. MTNL is also looking at new streams of revenue through sharing of infrastructure of Wi-Max and 3G, the minister said.