Tariff Prices May Go Down by Another 25-30% Over the Next One Year: Analysts

Since the entry to Reliance Jio into the market, the mobile phone bill has become lighter compared to what we subscribers used to pay earlier. The pricing war in the Indian telecom industry is still going on, and analysts predict that they will go down by another 25-30% in the next one year.

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If you recall, over the last one year, the tariff plan prices have reduced by nearly 25-32% for a normal user, and 60-70% for heavy data users. The reason behind operators slashing the tariff plans is because of the cutthroat pricing created by Reliance Jio in the market.

Out of nowhere, almost all the telecom operators in India including the Big 3- Airtel, Vodafone and Idea have lowered the tariffs to compete with Reliance Jio and to retain the market share.

Telecom operators are just looking to retain the market share, which ultimately led to a mountain of debt. Rajan Mathews, the director-general of industry body COAI said that the debt is unlikely to clear soon, and so does the competition for market share. He is also expecting that this war will continue for another year. “This will further increase stress levels of the telecom industry,” Rajan said.

He also insisted that government should take steps to avoid the industry from getting into deeper troubles such as payment defaults. However, in a customer’s perspective, it’s a great news.

The average monthly spending on mobile bills has come down 25-28 percent in a year to Rs 240-280 in 2017, said Hemant Joshi, a partner at Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP. Due to new business models and aggressive tariff war, the monthly bills are expected to fall by another 30 percent in the next year, he said.