Airtel Wants An Average Mobile User To Pay Rs 300/Month; Adds 1.2 Crore New Users In 2 Months

In a recent media interaction, Bharti Airtel Chairman Suni Mittal has pitched an idea: Average Revenue Per User or ARPU in the telecom industry should be Rs 300/month.

This means that atleast Rs 300 should be spent by every user, who has a mobile connection.

Meanwhile, owing to the excellent 4G network and performance, Airtel has managed to add whooping 1.2 crore new users, in the last 2.5 months.

Since Airtel was consistently losing customers, ever since Jio came into existence, this is indeed an achievement.

Airtel Chairman: Industry ARPU Should Be Rs 300

While speaking with reporters this week, Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal has suggested that ARPU or Average Revenue Per User in India has to be Rs 300, in order to generate revenues, and turn profitable.

In case ARPU becomes Rs 300, then as per Mittal, Rs 100 per month would be spent by the lower-end consumers, and Rs 400-450 would be spent by the higher end customers, per month.

As of now, the industry ARPU is hovering around Rs 200

Without naming Jio, he said that mobile users in India have been enjoying lower rates since long, and now time has come to change that.

He said, “That’s the balance we need to get to try and Trai has to work on this because the industry has not been able to have an orderly mechanism to get to that point,”

Why This Statement Holds Significance?

This statement from Airtel founder holds much signifiance, because of two reasons:

1. Starting December, except BSNL, every telecom operator in India has increased their tariff by upto 40%, and this is the new disruption of India’s telecom industry. 

1. Recently, TRAI hinted that they may set a base tariff for all telecom operators in India: This means, that soon, a base tariff will be declared, and no telco can provide service below that rate. This had led to speculations that the mobile tariff in India can increase even more, in the coming days.

Now, after Sunil Mittal’s statements about ARPU, it seems that the mobile tariff in India will increase even more. Note here, that right now, India has 10th cheapest Internet service in the world, and is counted among those 6 nations, where a user can get 1Gbps speed under $20.

But, it can change soon.

Airtel Adds 1.2 Crore New Users

In a related news, which is actually excellent for Airtel, 1.2 crore new users have joined in their network, since October.

While 5 million or 50 lakh new users were added in October, 70 million or 70 lakh new users opted Airtel in the month of November.

Reacting on this positive news, an Airtel spokesperson said, “We are seeing a clear customer preference for our network and product propositions like Airtel Thanks. We are confident of exiting the quarter with record net 4G subs adds.” 

We will keep you updated, as more details come in.