Airtel Recent Strategies Likely To Increase ARPU In Coming Months

The recent move of Airtel of increasing postpaid and prepaid plans will help telco to increase its average revenue per user in the coming months. Notably, the telecom operator has recently made several changes in its offering. In fact, the telecom operator has removed entry-level plans from its platform.

Airtel has recently removed Rs. 49 prepaid plan and its pack is priced at Rs. 79, which is close to Reliance Jio's plan of Rs. 75, where users are getting 3GB + 200MB of data, 50 messages, and unlimited calling for 28 days. However, a new report by a research firm India Ratings said that Airtel tariff hikes indicate the whole industry is looking for high ARPU.

It added that "Growing data tariffs, increasing data usage per subscriber and increasing data subscribers in the overall subscriber base over the last one year." The firm also highlighted that Airtel has the ability to increase ARPU without increasing tariffs.

Airtel Leads Average Monthly Data Usage Segment

In addition, the firm said India's second-largest telecom operator Airtel leads the average monthly data usage (GB). It added that Airtel posted a 12.4 percent rise in data usage to 18.93GB, which means mobile users are using mobile internet while working from home.

India Ratings added that Airtel's user base needs to observe for the next three to six months. On the other hand, TRAI data suggested that Reliance Jio added active users in May due to JioPhone offers.

Wireless And Broadband Subscribers Base Declined In May 2021

The firm said that the wireless along with broadband user base has been declined during the same month. However, India Ratings pointed out that, "RJio continued the uptrend and reported an increase of 3.6 million subscribers in May 2021, along with a rise of 2.8 million active subscribers and an addition of 3.8 million broadband subscribers."

It is important to note that Airtel's strategies to raise tariffs of postpaid plans clearly show that it is taking all steps to raise money so that it can clear dues as soon as possible and start focussing on services. Besides, attracting new users in the coming months.