Market Now: Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications among top losers in telecom stocks

NEW DELHI: Most of the telecom stocks were trading in red in the morning trade on Tuesday with Reliance Communications falling the most 0.92 per cent, followed by Bharti Airtel (down 0.68 per cent). The BSE Telecom index was down 0.16 per cent at 1327.25 around 10.15 am (IST).

Other telecom majors such as Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (down 0.48 per cent), Tata Communications (down 0.36 per cent) and Idea Cellular (down 0.12 per cent) were also trading in red.

As per TRAI data, country’s largest operator Bharti Airtel's market share declined to 23.58 per cent at the end of December 2016 from 24.07 per cent in the previous year despite its subscriber base swelling by close to 9.3 per cent.

Telecom players Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular saw their market shares shrinking in 2016, giving way to aggressive newcomer Reliance Jio that ended the year with 6.4 per cent market share, as per data by telecom regulator Trai, reported by PTI.

Reliance Jio, after starting its commercial operations in early September 2016 with free voice and data offerings, ended the year with 6.4 per cent market share and 72.16 million subscribers.

Besides telecom, IT and consumer durables were other major indices trading in red.

Overall, benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty50 pared most of their initial gains and were trading almost flat. Nifty50 index was 15.55 points up at 9,630.55, while the 30-share Sensex was 38.60 points down at 31,260.22 around 10.15 am (IST).

In the Nifty50 pack, 30 stocks were trading in green, while 21 stocks were in red.

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