Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has gained customers of Vodafone Idea (Vi) after the latter engaged in a tariff hike exercise with Jio and Airtel. Vi's CEO, Akshaya Moondra confirmed the development at the recently concluded earnings call for Q1 FY25. Moondra said that this has happened because BSNL hasn't raised its tariffs. There are chances that BSNL also gained customers of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel post the hike.
But the telco has not panicked looking at this. Vi believes that customers who decided to port out without putting much thought will likely come back as BSNL can't offer competitive 4G services.
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Moondra said, "One of the trends we have seen is that the port out to BSNL has generally increased from the pre-tariff increase levels and the reason for that is that they (BSNL) have not increased their tariffs so there is a fair amount of arbitrage."
"Our expectation is that customers who are used to using good coverage and experience of 4G, probably the current offering of BSNL may not be to that extent and people who may have taken a quick decision in terms of the tariff actions may most likely come back," he added.
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While BSNL is in the process of rolling out 4G, the state-run telecom operator would find it hard to compete with the offerings of Vodafone Idea that is also bound to launch 5G in the near future. The company said that it is closely monitoring this situation and will see what needs to be done about it.
The entry-level tariffs are still quite affordable for users, said Vi's CEO. Thus, it should not affect the customers a lot. "My sense is that since the entry price increase this time has been minimal, that should not result in so much of SIM consolidation," he said.
