Telecom operators like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have engaged in a small round of tariff hikes in a very silent manner. This keeps happening every few weeks and months. The telcos tweak the plans to improve margins on services. This is the nature of the business. Much recently, Airtel hiked the the tariffs for the users by removing the Rs 799 and the Rs 859 plans, and now instead offers the Rs 899 plan in place of Rs 859 option. This marks a silent hike, and while it is not a big one, it is substantial for the users to note.
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Reliance Jio made a change to the validity benefit of its Rs 195 data voucher. The telco's Rs 195 data voucher now has a standalone validity of 30 days instead of the earlier 90 days. While there's data and OTT (over-the-top) benefits bundled, it still shows a substantial hike in the cost of using this plan.
BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) is also known to keep hiking tariffs for users silently and indirectly. The state-run telecom operator doesn't directly increase the prices of its plans. Instead, BSNL reduces the service validity offered with the plan in a silent manner. All these are small hikes and account for marginal improvement in revenues and margins for the businesses.
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But now, we expect the telcos to go bigger in the near future. It has almost been two years since the telcos increased the prices of the plans. Given the trend of the hikes for the last few times, the telcos have increased the prices every two years. So we, along with the other industry experts, believe that the next round of hikes is very close. The hikes need to come for Jio to also improve IPO (initial public offering) prospects.
