Bharti Airtel's MD and CEO, Gopal Vittal, recently said that Airtel didn't see any loss of 5G customer customers despite the tariff hikes. However, the company saw some SIM consolidation of 2G customers. Bharti Airtel won't be bothered by 2G customers going out of its network. The telco's total 5G subscriber base jumped from 72 million in the previous quarter to 90 million in Q1 FY25. Vittal was speaking at the company's earnings call on Tuesday.
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"There’s been no cool-off on the 5G front. We have not seen, and don’t foresee any 5G customer dropouts, nor is there much downtrading among data users. But by and large, we’ve seen a modest SIM consolidation at the lower end of the market in the 2G space following the recent tariff repair," said Vittal.
Using 5G has become more expensive for Indian customers. Both Jio and Airtel are now offering 5G with prepaid plans that come with at least 2GB of daily data. For Jio the entry-level 5G plan costs Rs 349 while for Airtel it is Rs 379. So while using 5G has become expensive, it will only be clear whether the telco will lose 5G users or not at the end of this quarter.
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Reliance Jio reported its 5G customer base at 130 million during the end of the same quarter. Both companies have hiked tariffs recently and will see ARPU (average revenue per user) gains in the coming quarters. There's going to be some SIM consolidation, however, it should not happen with the premium or high-paying customers of the telecom operator.
The base tariff users will feel the most heat as keeping SIM active has become more expensive than ever compared to the rates in the last five years.
