The Indian telecom sector witnessed its average revenue per user (ARPU) per month for wireless services going up from Rs 115.71 during 2021-22 to Rs 138.75 in 2022-23. It meant a yearly growth rate of 19.91%, said TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) in its 'Yearly Performance Indicators - Indian Telecom Sector' report for the financial year 2022-23.
Despite no tariff hikes during the year, the growth in wireless services ARPU was a positive sign for the business of the telcos. Indian telecom operators offer mobile services in two segments to the customers - prepaid and postpaid. For prepaid, the ARPU per month increased from Rs 110.73 in 2021-22 to Rs 135.47 in 2022-23. However, during the same period, the ARPU per month for the postpaid services fell from Rs 185.15 to Rs 176.73.
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The postpaid segment is crucial for the Indian telcos as it is a high-margin business for them. While the postpaid ARPU has declined, the telcos wouldn't mind as long as their overall postpaid subscriber base is going up. This is because, at the end of the day, they would have more high-paying customers in their network.
The more data that customers will consume, the more the ARPU of the telcos will go up. The number of wireless data subscribers has increased from 796.44 million at the end of March 22 to 846.21 million at the end of March 23, registering a yearly growth rate of 6.25%. The total wireless data usage increased from 1,37,459 PB to 1,60,054 PB YoY, with a growth rate of 16.44%.
This is why, the total revenue flowing in from the wireless data usage increased from Rs 1,43,169 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 1,74,144 in 2022-23, with an yearly growth rate of 21.63%.
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License Fee Goes Up for the Indian Telecom Sector on Account of Higher Gross Revenues
The gross revenue of the telecom operators grew 19.94% YoY, from Rs 2,78,216 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 3,33,697 crore in 2022-23. Spectrum usage charges (SUC) declined 29.75% YoY from Rs 7,072 crore to Rs 4,698 crore in the same period. As for the license fee, it saw an uptick because of higher revenues, and grew by 13.20% YoY from Rs 17,627 crore to Rs 19,954 crore during the same period.
