Mobile bills may rise as Airtel and Jio mobile plans in India expected to get costly 2022
HIGHLIGHTS
- Service providers Airtel and Jio may soon increase their tariffs.
- The price hike in the network plans is expected to be 10 per cent, as per analysts.
- As of now, only Airtel and Jio provide 5G services in India.
Riding high on success as the early providers of 5G in India, telecom operations Airtel and Jio are most likely to increase tariffs of their current plans for the subsequent three years. According to a report by Business Insider India, analysts at Jefferies have stated a 10 per cent price hike in the network plans is anticipated from Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio in the fourth quarters of the Fiscal Year (FY) 23, FY24, and FY25.
Why Airtel and Jio might hike their existing tariffs?
The analysts said that telecom operators have already reaped most of the advantages from the recent rate increase, and the strain on their finances is only mounting, which calls for increased telecommunications prices.
As per the report, average revenue per user (ARPU), a crucial indicator of a telecom company’s performance, increased moderately for the September quarter for Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and Jio. Jio’s ARPU climbed 0.8 per cent sequentially, whereas Vodafone Idea’s ARPU increased by 1 per cent. In contrast, Airtel reported a 4 per cent increase.
Airtel began testing the price hike earlier this year by pulling the Rs 99 pack in specific areas. Meanwhile, Jio has recently rolled out a plan with unlimited data benefits for Rs 222.
In a report in October, a top Airtel official stated that the company would release 5G rate plans in the next few days. However, the telecom is not likely to charge a premium because 5G-enabled handsets only make up 8-9 percent of the network, and doing so may affect network upgrades. Airtel and Jio 5G service in India
Only two of the top three telecom providers in India now offer 5G services. Airtel was the first commercial service provider to implement non-standalone access (NSA) technology. Meanwhile, Jio is the sole Indian operator to use the 700 MHz band and 5G standalone access (SA) (5G low-band spectrum).
