The idea of tariff hikes is a concern for Indian citizens at this moment. The telecom operators including Jio and Airtel are driving the pricing decisions for everyone. These two own most of the market share, at the least the share which contributes to most of the revenues for the industry. While it is not a duopoly, it definitely feels like one from afar. The tariff hikes will allow the telcos to increase their earnings and improve margins. While it is mostly the prepaid plans that are under the radar of the telcos for the hikes, this time it could be the postpaid plans first or both prepaid and postpaid together.
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Here's an interesting insight. Until a few years back, the cost of an entry-level 5G prepaid pack and the entry-level postpaid plan was 65-70%, but now it is only 30%. So there's definitely room for the telcos to hike the tariffs of postpaid services. The thing is that postpaid plan users can absorb a hike way better than the prepaid users. With postpaid users, telcos can be confident about loyalty. They wouldn't mind a few extra rupees in their bill as long as they get the same or better convenience.
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In the last few years, the telcos have usually hiked the tariffs in about 2 years in a full fledged manner (they keep making small changes here and there). This means, we can expect the next hike somewhere in 2026, as the last one came in July 2024. For Airtel, the ARPU (average revenue per user) target is Rs 300 in the short-term. For Jio, there's no such declared target, but internally, they must have a number too. The idea for the telcos is to improve on the margins now. They have already spent a ton of money on deploying 5G and 4G throughout India.
