Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairperson, Bharti Enterprises said that Airtel won’t shy away from increasing tariffs. Mittal has time and again said that the industry needs tariff hikes to sustain and the average revenue per user (ARPU) should be near Rs 200 at least.
Bharti Airtel recently discontinued its Rs 49 prepaid plan. The telco started offering the base plan of Rs 79 to the users. This wasn’t a bad move for the company since it knew that Jio’s cheap plans would require users to purchase a new 4G device and Vodafone Idea (Vi) would follow it in increasing the tariffs for the base plan. But now, according to a tweet from Assem Manchanda, the base tariffs can further go to Rs 99.
Manchanda Quoted Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman, Bharti Enterprises, saying that the base tariffs of the company are going to move from Rs 79 to Rs 99.
Time for Tariff Hikes: Sunil Bharti Mittal
As per another tweet from Manchanda, Mittal said that it is time for tariff hikes. This will be yet another push from Bharti Airtel that’s not going to benefit Jio majorly. Users will be forced to recharge with at least Rs 99 to keep their numbers active and keep getting calls.
In a short span, the users will be paying almost 100% more amount than Rs 49 for getting the base plan from Bharti Airtel.
It is very much likely that Vodafone Idea will also increase its tariffs looking at Bharti Airtel. Jio again won’t be able to benefit much because its very cheap prepaid plans that require a subscription to JioPhone.
It will be interesting to see if Jio can come out with an affordable entry-level 4G plan that’s paired with the JioPhone Next. It will likely drive subscribers up for the company. As for the case of complete tariff hikes, the telcos aren’t expected to go after it ruthlessly. Jio isn’t expected to make any changes to its tariff structure as of now. The telcos will be looking at building a bigger subscriber base before they launch 5G services and plans to maximise their revenues from the next generation connectivity networks.
