Revenue per user will rise now: Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal

Bharti Airtel expects its average revenue per user (ARPU) — a key performance metric — to improve from the January-March quarter, as the impact of its minimum recharge plans kick in and more 2G and 3G users upgrade to 4G.

Gopal Vittal, CEO, said on Friday that the biggest ARPU growth drivers for Airtel would be higher contribution from the minimum recharge plans, benefits accruing from the recent price hike of the Rs 99 base bundled pack to Rs 119, rapid 2G customer upgrades to 4G and growing uptake of post-paid plans in the Rs 399 and Rs 499 range that come bundled with content from Amazon and Netflix.

“We are seeing the first signs of ARPU climbing and as more 2G customers upgrade to 4G and get on to a bundle, there will be an immediate ARPU upside,” Vittal said.

He was speaking on an earnings call, a day after Bharti Airtel’s consolidated net profit slumped 72% on-year to Rs 86 crore in the October-December quarter, as a one-time gain helped the telco surprise the market which had expected a loss. Analysts said that the 4.1% sequential ARPU expansion to Rs 104 and largely flattish India revenue in Q3 is signal that the worst could be behind the telco.

India’s second-largest telco’s shares closed 1.35% higher on BSE at Rs 311.30.

The carrier isn’t ruling out more marginal customer losses in the coming quarters with the full impact of the minimum recharge plans and re-classification of Airtel customers as only those that transact and generate revenues for the company.

The telco lost 58 million mobile phone customers in the December quarter after modification in its customer base measurement benchmarks.

Sanjesh Jain, telecom research analyst at ICICI Securities, estimates that “the clean-up of non-paying customers will trigger a jump in Airtel’s ARPU to Rs 118-120 in the fiscal fourth quarter, FY19.”

Vittal said Airtel in its efforts to drive its core 2G user base to go 4G is rapidly refarming its 900 Mhz band spectrum for LTE services and will do the same with its arsenal of 2100 Mhz airwaves that are being currently used for 3G services.

The company’s immediate target, he said, is maximising 4G customer acquisitions in the country’s top-1,000 cities, following which it will focus on expanding its 4G act to the next 5,000 cities.

The Airtel CEO though said demand for smartphones and overall pace of feature phone users upgrading to smartphones would only rise if top device makers launch high quality smartphones in the Rs 4,000-5,000 price-range.