Without naming Jio, Birla in a letter to shareholders of Idea Cellular said flourishing telecom industry witnessed a 2 per cent decline in annual revenues in 2016-17 fiscal.
The industry honcho's commentary in the latest annual report of Idea Cellular comes at a time when the telecom industry is facing a squeeze on revenue and profitability on account of competition intensified by the entry of Reliance Jio, which is owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani.
However, Birla said that the recovery is expected in 2017-18 with the new entrant starting to charge for its services, "albeit very slowly".
In spite of short term challenges, the Aditya Birla Group telecom company remains committed to the process of building world-class broadband services, Birla asserted.
On the mega merger of Vodafone's India unit with Idea, he said a joint merger notification has been filed with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the Scheme of Arrangement has been filed with SEBI and stock exchanges for their approvals.
"The combined company would become the leading communication provider in India with about 400 million customers, 35 per cent customer market share and 41 per cent Revenue Market Share...," he said in Chairman's letter to shareholders.
Birla exuded confidence that Idea will capitalise on the emerging opportunities in mobile voice, digital content, mobile banking and wireless data business as telecom market invariably moves towards consolidation with five major providers.
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