The prepaid users in the country are paying more for telecom services, and are likely to pay even more in the coming days. Multiple tariff hikes have been applied by the operators over the last few years. The prepaid ARPU (average revenue per user) of the telecom operators jumped from Rs 90 in QE September 2020 to Rs 189.69 in QE September 2025. The postpaid ARPU per month has decreased from Rs 234 in QE September 2020 to Rs 204.55 in QE September 2025.
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While telcos are looking to push people to postpaid from prepaid as part of their premiumisation journey, the postpaid ARPU has fallen in the last five years. What's interesting is that postpaid services are still mainstream, and there was also a hike for postpaid plans in the last few years. The private telecom operators are looking to hike the tariffs even further.
It will be interesting to see if the telcos will also increase the tariffs for postpaid services in the country. With bundled services under Airtel Black, Airtel is promoting its postpaid mobile business. Overall blended, the ARPU from mobile services has grown signficantly over the last five years. This has happened due to a tariff hike that came in late 2019, late 2021, and then in the mid of 2024.
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The analysts expect that the private telcos will hike the prices of mobile services later this year. This is primarily so because of Jio looking to list. Once listed on the stock exchanges, Jio will need to continously improve ARPU, and for that tariff hikes will be necessary. Airtel currently has the highest ARPU in the industry with Jio being the second. Vodafone Idea will also benefit when Jio and Airtel hike the prices of the plans.
