Are Indians paying more, or less for the data they consume? This is a million dollar question running in my mind for quite some time. The telecom operators in the country have been asking consumers to pay more and more every year that goes by. For telcos, their golden metric to track is the average revenue per user (ARPU) to assess how their business is performing. The ARPU for the industry has risen since 2018, as the telcos have engaged the customers in multiple tariff hikes.
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Few of the recent hikes came in 2019, 2021, and then in 2024. Telcos crib that they are not earning enough from the consumers with respect to the investments they are making in the infrastructure.
The ARPU for Jio was Rs 120 at the end of September 2019 quarter. At the end of June 2025 quarter, this was at Rs 208.8, almost a Rs 90 increase. Airtel's ARPU in the same period has gone up from Rs 128 to Rs 250, which is a staggering increase in the average amount the company earns from each of its customers.
Despite the steady rise in ARPU, the telcos believe that customers aren't paying enough. In fact, some of the operators such as Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) have talked about bringing in a new tariff structure. Airtel wants to go a notch higher and reach an ARPU target of Rs 300. This won't happen without a tariff hike or a tariff intervention.
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Indians are clearly not paying too little for the data. Know why? It is because the telcos are continously seeing their revenues go higher and higher, and with that, their profits (at least true for Jio and Airtel). Vodafone Idea and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) have stayed behind in the game, but only because of their inferior networks, nothing else.
The telcos believe that ARPU is still too low for them. The consumers will definitely not agree. But the ball is in the court of the telcos, as the consumer needs data, and if they need reliable service, they only have Airtel and Jio in most scenarios. The telcos
