When it comes to shipping extra benefits with prepaid and postpaid plans, there is one operator that trumps the industry, and it is Bharti Airtel. Although the pricing of the Bharti Airtel prepaid and postpaid plans is similar to the competing offerings and there is little to differentiate them from them in terms of core offerings like calling and SMS, but there are plenty of other benefits which Airtel ships for its customers and these benefits are the ones that make the Airtel plans stand out. One such benefit for the postpaid customers of Airtel above the Rs 499 price point has been the Netflix subscription of three months. This has been one of the most attractive benefits of the Airtel Postpaid plans. But, now it seems that Airtel has discontinued this benefit. Meaning that the Airtel Postpaid plans no longer ship with Netflix benefit for three months. The thing to note here is that Airtel is not going to reduce the benefit of Netflix offering by bringing it down to two or one months, but is going to get completely rid of it. This is definitely a disappointment for the customers. Read more about it ahead.
Netflix Benefit Discontinued on January 15
It is worth noting that Bharti Airtel removed the Netflix benefit from its postpaid plans on January 15, 2020. Prior to this, the telecom operator had written for its postpaid plans saying that it would no longer ship the Netflix benefit for the postpaid plans for its Platinum customers. When the benefit of Netflix was available for the postpaid customers, they were able to get three months worth of Netflix subscription, and after that, they could decide to recharge their Netflix account with their postpaid bill.
Another notable thing about this move is the timing. Only last month, Bharti Airtel along with the other two telecom companies had decided to hike their tariffs. In this move, Bharti Airtel had hiked its tariffs by as much as 40%. It was expected that in the coming days, the telecom operator would also start reducing the benefits of some of the plans that it is shipping. Now, at that time, no change was made to the postpaid plans and the prepaid plans were the only ones that were hiked in prices. But, this move now affects the postpaid plans and reduces the attractiveness of the postpaid plans.
Airtel Broadband Plans Also Not Shipping Netflix
The Bharti Airtel broadband plans under the Airtel Xstream Fibre tag also used to come with the Netflix benefit of three months. In that case too, the Netflix benefit of three months has been discontinued. As for the other benefits in the Airtel Postpaid plans like the Amazon Prime Video, Handset Protection, Airtel Xstream subscription, ZEE5 subscription and more, remain as they were and no change has been made to them. The subscribers who have already bought their plans before January 15 will, however, continue to get the Netflix benefit.
Bharti Airtel Focuses More on ARPU
Bharti Airtel’s focus since the end of 2018 has been on the high-paying customers, and the goal has been to up the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of the company. The ARPU has been on the rise since the introduction of the minimum recharge plans in 2018, and it has got a boost after the recent data tariff hike. Very recently, Bharti Airtel also upped the minimum recharge floor from Rs 23 to Rs 45 thus making it compulsory for every Bharti Airtel subscriber to spend at least Rs 45 to keep their number on. This new move will also help in upping the ARPU from the postpaid customers.
