Telecom consolidation is the writing on the wall:UBS's Mahadevan-:- Equity Research

Consolidation in the Indian telecom market is immiment and is an interesting theme to play for in the sector, Suresh Mahadevan, ‎Managing Director - Head of Asian Telecom and Media research at UBS AG tells CNBC-TV18. Mahadevan says his firm is bullish on the telecom space. He cites potential for strong growth in the data segment as a key trigger. Both globally and in Asia, regulators and telcos are realising it will be helpful to have a lot of spectrum in the data segment, he said. He added that he is positive on stocks such as Bharti Airtel and Idea , and is waiting for Reliance Jio’s commercial operations to begin. While market expects a disruption from Reliance Jio, Mahadaven said it is yet to be seen how Reliance Jio's entry pans out. In country like India, where fixed line penetration isn’t much, Internet usage through mobile presents a big opportunity, given that a vast majority of mobile phones are not 4G and a vast majority does not use Internet on phones, he said. According to TRAI data, Airtel had 25.22 crore subscribers, Vodafone had 19.79 crore and Idea had 17.46 crore as of April 2016.