Voice, Data Tariff Hike: 5-7% Increase In Revenues For Airtel, Jio Expected

Reliance Jio and Bharti may post a 5-7% sequential rise in revenue with a steady margin for the second quarter of FY22.

Airtel’s Performance

Bharti’s growth will be led by segmented tariff hikes taken in the second quarter ended September.

Jio’s growth will be driven by continued subscriber growth.

Bharti’s hikes in July should keep revenue growth strong over the near to medium term.

Bharti and Jio are in opposition when it comes to subscriber and average revenue per user (ARPU) trends.

ARPU

The former observed a sharp ARPU increase with subscriber declines.

On the other hand, Jio witnessed strong subscriber additions with steady ARPUs indicating that margins are likely to remain steady.

Bharti is expected to see revenue growth by 7% quarter-on-quarter in Q2 FY22.

This is led by a 7% growth in ARPU to Rs 157 after tariff hikes in the prepaid voice and corporate postpaid segments from August.

Jio’s Performance

Jio is expected to report a 4.7% revenue growth, quarter-on-quarter.

Thanks to the upcoming JioPhone Next, it could see strong subscriber additions.

However, ARPUs are likely to rise by a modest 1% QoQ to Rs 140 due to extra day in 2Q.

To watch out for in the future would be the JioPhone Next launch and timing of further tariff hikes.

Airtel Conducts India’s First 5G Trial

In other news, Airtel tested out 5G for the first time in India in partnership with Ericsson.

It took place in Bhaipur Bramanan village on the outskirts of Delhi-NCR region.

It achieved speeds exceeding 100 Mbps at a distance of more than 10 km from the site.

The telco conducted the trial on the mid-band trial spectrum in the 3,500 MHz band and existing FDD spectrum band. The infrastructure was powered by Ericsson’s 3GPP-compliant 5G radio.

5G Arrival In India

Randeep Sekhon, chief technology officer, said that if auctions take place early next year, 5G networks could go live across India a quarter or two after that.

A study by Ericsson reports that on an average, a 10% increase in the mobile broadband adoption ratio causes a 0.8% increase in GDP.

Thereby 5G has the potential to function as a “socio-economic multiplier” for the country. 

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