Sunil Mittal bats for mobile tariff hikes says Rs 10-12 a day affordable

New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Bharti Airtel founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal on Thursday said Indian mobile tariffs should rise to about Rs 350 a month per user, arguing that rising costs and a large infrastructure backlog make today's prices too low to fund what the country still has to build.

     He, however, gave no timelines for raising tariffs. Asked when the industry would reach that level, he said: "I don’t know."

     In an interview with PTI marking Bharti Enterprises' 50th year, Mittal said the level he used to cite is out of date. "I used to say earlier, the right level is Rs 300 (monthly revenue per user), but that was 10 years back," he said. "There's some inflation that we all suffer."

     Mittal rested his argument on two pressures. The first is the cost of running a network. "Oil prices are up, electricity costs are up, employee costs are up, administrative costs are up. Everything is up," he said.

     The second is how much remains to be built. "China has over a million towers. India has about 3,50,000. So we have a job to do. We have to at least double from where we are today," he said. He added that more fibre and more submarine cables are needed, and that "all this will require very serious investments."

     He tied the tariff question to the wider digital economy. "If we have the ambition and the vision to build really a very strong digital ecosystem in India, a very large amount of investment is still required," he said. Operators need healthy balance sheets "to continuously invest in this digital spine," he said, because UPI, health records, direct benefit transfers and delivery and e-commerce firms all run on their networks.

     He pointed to the money already spent on 5G, which he said has not produced the new revenue the industry hoped for. Spectrum cost operators "lakhs of crores," he said, and the network build took another "lakh and a half crores". "Serious investments have gone," he said. He called the revenue result "a bit of a disappointment," while saying it had at least "created the required capacity for the digital world."

     Mittal also argued that telecom is undervalued next to the platforms that depend on it. "We do all the hard work, but we don't get the same valuation and the profitability that those who don’t make these investments get," he said.

     Mittal said a Rs 350 average would still make India's tariffs "by far the cheapest anywhere in the world." He described it as a blend of entry plans at "200 plus" and higher packs of Rs 5, 7, 8 or 10 hundred, and put it at Rs 10-12 a day.

     "You buy now soap and a packet of chips. You know what it costs. Having a bottle of Pepsi costs you a lot more than that," he said. For that money, he said, a user can do banking, education, benefit transfers, UPI payments and health records, "and by the way, enjoy your movies and Instagram and YouTube."

     Airtel’s mobile revenue per user was Rs 271 in the September quarter, against Rs 256 a year earlier, the company said when it reported results. Rs 350 would be roughly 29 per cent above that.

     The last round of headline tariff increases came in June 2024, when plans rose 10-25 per cent. India's tariffs, and so its revenue per user, have been among the lowest in the world, and there have been only three tariff increases since 2019. Analysts had widely expected another round after Reliance Jio's listing. Some analysts forecast a hike in late 2026, and Vodafone Idea chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla has repeatedly called for tariff corrections.

     In August, Airtel withdrew some entry-level plans without raising headline tariffs. It brought back a Rs 299 prepaid plan this month as net customer additions fell to 7.16 lakh in the September quarter from 33 lakh in the previous one.

     IMPLICATIONS

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     For operators: A move toward Rs 350 would lift revenue for Airtel and Jio, and Mittal's remarks suggest Airtel sees room to move. They also come just after Jio's listing, which Mittal said does not change the competitive landscape.

     For Vodafone Idea: The weakest of the three private operators has the most at stake. Jefferies has estimated it would need cumulative tariff increases of about 45 per cent between FY27 and FY30 to meet its statutory dues. Mittal said he wants three strong operators, adding that Vodafone Idea and BSNL are in a "challenging spot."

     For consumers and churn: Past hikes have cost subscribers. Jio lost around 12.74 million subscribers between July and September 2024 after its last increase. Mittal did not address that risk.

     For the capacity debate: Mittal also said operators run networks at "20, 30 per cent of our capacity," meaning there is room for more traffic without new spending. He framed the next round of spending as new capacity for AI, fibre, towers and satellite links.

     For policy: He said India must not return to the market of "over a dozen operators," which he blamed for weak balance sheets and "poor investments back into the infrastructure."