Covid may hit telcos’ user gains in June quarter, delay tariff hikes

The latest spike in Covid cases and select restrictions in force in various places are likely to slow down mobile user additions in the April-June quarter and delay tariff increases by three to six months, analysts said. Such a scenario could leave struggling Vodafone Idea (Vi) even more vulnerable to bigger user losses in the quarter, they said.

Analysts expect Airtel and Jio to offset any potential slowdown in subscriber additions by garnering higher data revenue and expanding their home broadband user base as people once again go back to largely working from home.