Telecom tariffs have to rise, ARPU should be Rs 200: MD, Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel on Thursday said that telecom tariffs have to increase as the average revenue per user (ARPU) should be around Rs 200, up from the current Rs 157.

Gopal Vittal, managing director and chief executive officer (India and South Asia), stopped short of mentioning whether the company was contemplating a hike in rate in the near future. Airtel’s ARPU rose to Rs 157 a month in Q1FY21 from Rs 129 in Q1FY20. The rise in ARPU is more organic as some of the company’s 2G customers migrated to 4G, he said in the company’s post-earnings conference call.

The last time the company revised its tariffs was in December 2019. Besides Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and Reliance Jio also raised their tariffs by 30 per cent around that time.