Recent tariff changes to benefit Vi, Airtel, Jio

The three private telecom operators of the nation, Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel, and Reliance Jio will certainly benefit from the recent changes in tariffs and offers provided to the customers. In the September quarter, multiple things took place, such as telcos removed their base plans to earn more out of low average revenue per user (ARPU) customers. Then the telcos introduced bulk data plans with new validities, which were slightly on the more expensive end. Telcos even withdrew the offers and benefits (talktime and data) that they were providing to their customers.

Due to this consumer spending is going to increase substantially, which will help the operators in increasing their ARPU. With their ARPU slightly increased, the operators are expected to continue exploring ways to expand their subscriber market share until 5G comes, but that is a topic of discussion for some other day.

The pandemic situation has improved very much now, which will further let the telcos add more users aggressively. The telecom operators aren’t even offering SMS benefits in their low-end plans, which will mean that low-income users won’t have the ability to port to the other networks. For keeping the SMS benefits, consumers will have to spend more.

If the relief package comes and tariff hikes are followed by that, it will mean that the telecom operators will be in a very good position instantly. This will further push people outside of the industry to invest their money in the sector resulting in an even better scenario for everyone involved.

Few things which might still bug the operators are adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, spectrum usage charges (SUC), and the inability to surrender unused spectrum. Hopefully, things will change for the sector very soon.