New Delhi: State-owned BSNL says it is likely to swing into
profit in financial year 2019-20, a year later than previously
estimated, as stiff competition has squeezed margins.
According to
BSNL chairman and managing director Anupam Shrivastava, “market
disruption” and fall in tariffs have dashed hopes of clocking profit in
2018-19 and BSNL intends to focus sharply on gaining subscriber market
share and growing enterprise business to protect revenue over the coming
quarters.
“In this financial year, it won’t be possible...because
the market has disrupted a lot and many companies are in red. We hope
that in 2019-20 we will be able to swing into net profit,” Shrivastava
told PTI when asked about BSNL’s previous estimates of becoming
profitable in 2018-19.
BSNL, which offers mobile, landline
and broadband services across India (except Delhi and Mumbai where MTNL
operates) is yet to announce 2017-18 financial results. Shrivastava
said BSNL had gained market share at a time when rival private operators
had seen that metric static.
“We gained customers from companies
that were closing operations. We did a mid-course correction. We
realised that in this disruptive market, there is no point in focusing
solely on revenue but also customer market share...we were able to do
both,” he said.
BSNL’s loss stood at Rs4,786 crore in 2016-17,
marginally lower than Rs4,875 crore in 2015-16. The losses, in fact,
have narrowed sharply from Rs8,234 crore in 2014-15. BSNL’s total
revenue was been pegged at about Rs32,000 crore and revenue from
operations at about Rs28,000 crore in 2016-17, with EBITDA at about
Rs1,700 crore, he said.
“While the number are still to
come out for 2017-18 , we expect that EBITDA should remain in positive
territory in spite of competition in market. We also expect to reduce
net loss through lower expenditure...We expect to maintain our revenue
(at same level as last year) during 2017-18,” he said.
In
2018-19, the focus would be on maintaining and growing customer market
share and accelerating the momentum on the enterprise business, which is
growing at a steady pace, he said. “In 2018-19, we are going to grow
our revenue on the back of the enterprise business, infrastructure
sharing, collaboration for FTTH (Fiber to the home) and other services,”
Shrivastava said.