Pricing remains a challenge

Bharti Airtel is seeing improved customer engagement with rollout of 5G service but pricing remains a challenge, said Gopal Vittal, managing director, Bharti Airtel while announcing the FY23 results.

“Ideally customers should pay more for higher usage. The company is seeing lower customer churn and an increase in data consumption with the launch of 5G service. These will benefit average revenue per user as the number of 5G enabled handsets grow from current 10-11 per cent.
Pricing however remains a challenge with India having the lowest rates for data packs on per GB basis in the world.

Indian telecom industry’s pricing structure is broken with adoption of one size fits all pricing model. In a consumer industry you would typically have people who are able to pay more get more (allowance or services)..people who pay less get a lot less….There is no reason for them to buy higher plan unless they are unique users. So it is not the right price architecture which we need in a market like India,” Vittal added.

CT Bureau