Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel has neither witnessed significant SIM consolidation nor experienced notable down-trading, contrary to expectations following the tariff revision effective July 2024. In the mobility business, while the operator lost 2.9 million customers due to SIM consolidation triggered by the tariff changes, this decline was less severe compared to previous rounds.
Airtel added approximately 4.2 million smartphone customers (including 4G/5G users) in Q2FY25. With 5G shipments continuing to grow, the company closed the quarter on September 30 with a 5G user base of 105 million, further strengthening its market share. Indian private telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel, revised tariffs effective July 3, 2024, aiming to establish a financially sustainable business model for telecom in India.
Bharti Airtel recorded the highest mobile ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) in the country at Rs 233 in Q2FY25, compared to Rs 203 in Q2FY24. Mobile data consumption increased by 22.6 percent year-on-year, with an average consumption of 23.9 GB per customer per month.
As part of the tariff revision, Airtel, in line with the industry trend, is offering unlimited 5G data on prepaid plans with a daily data limit of 2GB or more. Customers must opt for higher data packs to enjoy unlimited 5G benefits. While 5G can be accessed on all of Airtel’s data packs, customers looking for the introductory unlimited 5G data benefit must recharge with a 2GB-per-day data pack or higher.
Airtel 5G Booster Packs
For customers who previously opted for 1GB or 1.5GB data packs but underestimated their usage and now wish to experience unlimited 5G, Airtel introduced three data booster packs— Rs 51, Rs 101, and Rs 151—on July 18. These boosters can be added to existing data packs and provide unlimited 5G data benefits alongside an additional 3GB, 6GB, and 9GB of data, respectively, for the remainder of the current plan’s validity.
With the price of plans offering unlimited 5G data has gone up, Airtel’s entry-level Unlimited 5G Plan now costs Rs 379. This plan includes unlimited voice calls, 2GB of daily data, 100 SMS per day, and a validity of one month. As part of Airtel Rewards, customers also receive access to Airtel Xstream free content, a three-month membership to Apollo 24|7 Circle, free HelloTunes (one tune per month), and unlimited 5G data usable in 5G-network only.
Customer Retention and Insights
On the customer response post-tariff revision, Airtel noted that the company has not observed significant plan downgrades. Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and CEO of Bharti Airtel Limited, responded to a question during Q2FY25 earnings call about the adoption of the 2GB-per-day pack, which offers unlimited 5G data, stating “With the tariff repair that happened in the last few months we did not actually see any significant downgrades. We were able to hold on to the user base and sort of move them into the right plans.”
He added “We have been surprised about the lack of downtrading, which we were expecting. We were expecting two things that will happen with the tariff repair, number one was a greater amount of sim consolidation than we saw and the second was a greater amount of down-trading, both those have not materialised so we are better than our action standards on both fronts.”
Addressing a similar query about the Rs 51 5G upgrade top-up, Vittal noted that in a market like India, not every single user would adopt the plan. He said: “There is always that reality has to be tempered by what actually happens in any category it is not just our category. The only thing I would say is that we are consistently growing this because this is one of the drivers of our ARPU.”
Airtel sees substantial potential for data monetisation, whether through 2GB plans or by targeting users who exceed their data allowances. Vittal emphasised that “The number of users who actually take these data packs, the tiny fraction of the overall breachers, so again the upside is large and it is consistently growing.”
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