The Indian telecom industry saw an increase in the average revenue per user (ARPU) figure for wireless services in FY24. According to the data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the industry's ARPU jumped 7.57% in FY24. While this sounds like a decent growth, the ground reality was that apart from Airtel, no other telecom company saw noteworth growth in their wireless services ARPU.
TRAI said, "Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) per month for wireless service increased from Rs.138.75 in 2022-23 to Rs.149.25 in 2023-24, thereby
showing a yearly rate of growth of 7.57%."
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For the prepaid services, ARPU went up from Rs 135.47 to Rs 146.37 YoY. For postpaid services, it went up from Rs 176.73 to Rs 184.63. In FY25, this growth should be boosted owing to the mobile plans tariff hikes implemented at the start of Q2 FY25. Every private telecom operator increased the price of their plans.
The number of wireless data subscribers also increased. At the end of March 2024, there were 913.34 million wireless data subscribers compared to 846.21 million users a year ago. This also resulted in a boost in revenues from data services.
"Total revenue from wireless data usage increased from Rs. 1,74,144 crore in the year 2022-23 to Rs. 1,86,226 crore in the year 2023-24 with yearly
rate of growth of 6.94%," said TRAI.
Growth was scene in the rural telephone connections by several million users during the year. "Rural telephone subscription increased from 518.63 million at the end of Mar-23 to 533.90 million at the end of Mar-24 at the yearly rate of growth of 2.94%. Rural Tele-density also increased from 57.71% at the end of Mar-23 to 59.19% at the end of Mar-24 with yearly rate of growth of 2.56%."
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Private telecom operators are investing more in bringing digital connectivity to rural India as fast as possible. The gross revenue saw a marginal growth YoY, which was slightly disappointing. AGR (adjusted gross revenue) on the other hand saw 8.24% YoY growth from Rs 2,49,908 crore to Rs 2,70,504 crore.
Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) declined as the government is not charging SUC with the new spectrum. License fee increased by 8.54% to Rs 21,642 crore from Rs 19,954 crore in the previous year.
