Bharti Airtel sees an opportunity to raise tariffs for data services. The company believes that the current pricing model is flawed. A senior company official stated that the rich are paying too little, while the poor do not need to be charged for basic services. During the company's earnings call for the first quarter of the current fiscal year, Bharti Airtel Vice-Chairman and MD Gopal Vittal explained that he sees scope for increasing data service tariffs because they are very low in India compared to even countries with low per capita incomes.
Opportunity of data prices hike
Vittal said, "The architecture of pricing in India is quite skewed. At the entry level itself or just above the entry level, you get so much data allowance, calling and messaging, that you really don't have any reason to upgrade. It's just an unfortunate situation where people who can afford to pay, the rich, are paying less and the poor, you know, we don't need to charge the poor anymore".
For instance, a customer needs to pay Rs 199 for a month-long connection which comes with unlimited local, STD, roaming calls and 2GB data limit. By paying Rs 100 more a subscriber of Airtel can get 1 GB data per day and it goes up to 3 GB data per day with plans starting from Rs 449 onwards.
He suggested that if India had a more sensible pricing model like Indonesia, the average revenue per user (ARPU) would be significantly higher without negatively impacting low-end customers. According to the UK-based data platform Cable.co.uk, the average data price in India was about 16 cents in 2023, while in Indonesia it was around 28 cents.
Increase in ARPU
The company's focus, Vittal said, is to improve its customer mix and continue encouraging postpaid and smartphone users to upgrade. Bharti Airtel's India operations saw its ARPU, a key metric for growth, increase to Rs 250 in the June 2025 quarter, up from Rs 211 a year earlier. Mobile data consumption on its network also increased by 13.4 per cent to 26.9 GB per customer per month.
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