The Indian telecom operators including Jio, Airtel, and Vi have implemented silent and marginal hikes. These hikes will allow them to sustain revenue growth rate quarter on quarter, which has slowed down in the September 2025 quarter. The telcos have implemented large scale tariff hikes multiple times since 2019. Due to these hikes, they have managed to improve their average revenue per user (ARPU), and overall margins. The last hike was implemented in July 2024.
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Much recently, Vi hiked the Rs 1999 plan by 12% while the cost for its Rs 509 plan with 84 days validity went up by 7%. Airtel and BSNL have also implemented marginal or indirect tariff hikes in the last few months, with Jio indirectly participating as well (remember the 1GB daily data plan removal, it is an indirect manner of pushing consumers to recharge with higher value plans).
While the growth for the telcos has been there, their costs to operate the business haven't come down any signficantly. They need to counter inflation, and also need to improve margins to justify business to the stake holders. The telcos are expected to implement another hike, and we expect it to happen some time around in 2025. Usually, the telcos have waited two years before going ahead with another hike, at least for the previous two hikes.
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Given that Reliance Jio is also looking to go for an IPO (Initial Public Offering), we expect that the telecom industry will go for a hike. This would not just benefit one player, but the entire sector. Even Vi, which has been losing customers, will still benefit from the growing ARPU. At present, amongst the private telcos, Vi is the only player to have an ARPU which is below Rs 200.
