Airtel Did Best Amongst Vi, Jio After Tariff Hikes

Bharti Airtel’s performance was the best amongst all the private telecom operators, including Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea, after the prepaid tariff hikes. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, Airtel was the only private telco that added new subscribers in the month of December 2021.

“Airtel has done fairly better among all three operators that revised mobile plans in late November. Airtel has positive subscriber addition as it continues its focus on attracting quality customers,” said Charu Paliwal, an analyst at Counterpoint Research.

Airtel has certainly done better as its average revenue per user (ARPU) growth and subscriber addition rate has been better than Jio post prepaid tariff hikes. The telco expects to do even better as the full impact of the prepaid tariff hikes will be seen in Q4 FY22.

BSNL Added More Subscribers than Private Telcos in December 2021

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) added more subscribers in December 2021 than all of the private telecom operators. This might be the only time it may happen because BSNL benefited from the prepaid tariff hikes of the other telcos.

Many low-paying customers shifted to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) as its prepaid tariffs were way lower compared to what the private telcos were offering.

“Vi and Jio registered subscriber loss, but BSNL seems to have gained from their loss as it added more than 1.1 million subscribers. This can probably be due to consumers opting BSNL on affordability factor over other private telcos,” Paliwal added.

MNP Requests Were Higher Due to Prepaid Tariff Hikes

The mobile number portability (MNP) requests made during December 2021 were considerably higher than the requests made in November 2021. It was because of the prepaid tariff hikes kicking in and a lot of customers changing preferences about which telecom operators they want to stick with post the arrival of new tariffs.

“There were 8.54 million MNP requests in December as compared to 7.33 million in Nov. This jump was expected on the back of tariff hike with price-sensitive customers switching to affordable plans offered by other players.”