On Wednesday, Bharti Airtel, India's leading telecommunications provider, said it is rapidly expanding 5G to cities and towns where it matters the most. In the Q3FY23 earnings call briefing, Airtel's Managing Director, Gopal Vittal, said the company had identified 150 top cities that account for nearly 40% of the Indian Telecom market - Mobility services, DTH, Broadband, Enterprise or Cloud Services - and would ramp up services in these areas to grow the revenue share strategically, cut costs and leverage the 5G Technology to drive postpaid growth.
Also Read: Airtel 5G Plus Launched in 4 Cities of Odisha
Leverage 5G to drive Postpaid Growth
Airtel said the company uses data science technologies to understand where traffic is moving and where the population is dispersed to decide the places for the rollout. In addition, the company wants to leverage 5G Technology to drive postpaid growth.
Every Tower is important
Airtel says it is really important for the company that every Individual Tower is profitable and revenue accretive. So, Airtel is utilising sophisticated data technologies to analyse the data and plan expansion accordingly.
Also Read: Explained: Differences Between 5G NSA and SA
NSA Showing Positive Results
Vittal said the 5G Non-Standalone (5G NSA) technology that the company was deploying for 5G was also giving 30 per cent wider coverage in commercial trials than what it would have got with Standalone 5G. This coverage achieved is a big impact which will be felt in the number of 5G towers that the company needs to put up. The company will squeeze its 4G investments and focus more on the 5G Network. The company would invest more in future technologies, hence more investments into 5G.
Also Read: Bharti Airtel ARPU Rises to Rs 193 in Q3 FY23
Airtel ARPU Growth
Airtel reported an average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 193 in Q3 FY23, with the widening of its 4G customer base.
"ARPU needs to go up. ARPU of Rs 300 will be critical and we hope it will happen in due course," Vittal said.
The company hiked its entry-level pack price from Rs 99 to Rs 155 in Haryana and Odisha in December and followed this up with 17 other circles as it did not see any significant customer churn.
Also Read: Airtel to Hike Entry Level Tariffs Across All Telecom Circles
Airtel 5G Plus Cities
Airtel launched its 5G services last October at the IMC 2022, and Airtel 5G Plus services are currently live in 83 cities as of February 8, 2023. Bharti Airtel plans to expand Airtel 5G Plus services to 300 cities by March 2023 and cover all Urban areas by March 2024. To provide a seamless Network experience to customers, Airtel also rolled out approximately 8,600 additional towers in the quarter to strengthen the network coverage.
