Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator by market share, has raised the price of one of its long-validity prepaid plans, a move analysts said may be aimed at testing the waters for broader tariff hikes.
On Sunday, Airtel raised the tariff of its ₹859 mobile plan — valid for 84 days with 1.5 GB of data per day — to ₹899, according to its website. It also discontinued its ₹799 plan with 77-day validity.
The tariff hike is particularly significant because headline prices across all plans have remained unchanged for the past two years. While these hikes pinch consumers, operators see price increases as essential for improving their returns and recovering the massive capital spent on 5G infrastructure.
Analysts said that Airtel’s ₹40 price hike on its popular plan—a 4.7% increase—will likely result in only a marginal improvement to its average revenue per user (Arpu), a key metric that reflects the monthly revenue telecom operators earn per subscriber.
However, some experts said the move could be a strategic test of the market, allowing the operator to gauge the reaction of high-value subscribers and potentially paving the way for more meaningful, incremental price increases over time.
Kranthi Bathini, director of equity strategy at WealthMills Securities, a Sebi-registered securities broking company, said, "Airtel might be testing the waters. What we see is a clear-cut duopoly in the sector, with telcos having the flexibility to tweak tariffs. Users with plans above ₹700-800 are high-value customers, and they have high stickiness compared to those at the entry level, where porting out is seen with any tariff hike.”
According to Bathini, the high-value customers usually only switch operators over persistent service quality issues. From an investor’s point of view, however, tariff hikes are positive as they signal improvement in Arpu, he said.
Parag Kar, an independent telecom analyst, said, “This tweak is unlikely to materially move revenues, unless tariff hikes are implemented across popular plans — as seen in July 2024. The impact of a single-plan revision remains limited. That said, operators may be testing a strategy of gradual, incremental increases that cumulatively deliver meaningful Arpu growth over time.”
For comparison, Reliance Jio offers a ₹889 plan and ₹859 plan, both valid for 84 days with 1.5 GB and 2 GB of daily data, respectively, along with bundled offerings, according to its website. The operator also has a ₹899 plan that’s validi for 90 days and provides 2 GB of data per day as well as add-on benefits such as a JioHotstar subscription. Vodafone Idea also offers a ₹859 plan that’s valid for 84 days with 1.5 GB of data per day.
Queries emailed to Bharti Airtel did not elicit a response.
‘Headline tariff hikes are in Jio’s hands’
Airtel currently leads the industry on Arpu at ₹259 a month, followed by Reliance Jio at ₹213.7 and Vodafone Idea at ₹172.
An industry executive said, “Airtel can expect a marginal increase in Arpu with this tariff hike as it does not have a large user base in the ₹899 segment. Further, any meaningful surge in the Arpu will come when operators take hikes across the board and that will have to align with market leader Reliance Jio.”
In January Reliance Jio, whose parent company Jio Platforms is expected to file its draft IPO papers soon, ruled out any immediate tariff increase, signalling confidence in organic growth in its Arpu, driven by rising 5G usage.
Vodafone Idea CEO Abhijit Kishore said in February, “Any pricing intervention is the call of a leader, not the call of a challenger. We have always maintained that the industry needs a price repair. We will wait for the leaders to take a call on that, and then we will evaluate.”
In absence of tariff hikes, Airtel said in February that Arpu growth would be aided by factors such as premiumization, prepaid-to-postpaid conversions, 2G to 4G/5G upgrades, international roaming, and data consumption.
Telecom operators last raised headline tariffs in July 2024, after a gap of more than two years. Reliance Jio led the shift with a 12-25% price hike. And in 2025, telecom operators phased out their entry-level 1-GB-per-day plans.
Growth in India’s telecom sector slowed to a six-quarter low in the December quarter despite higher data consumption and growth in home broadband subscriptions, as the benefits of earlier tariff hikes had largely run their course, analysts said.
During the third quarter of 2025-26, telecom operators’ revenue rose 2% quarter-on-quarter and 9% year-on-year to ₹72,700 crore. This was lower than the double‑digit expansion seen during the previous five quarters as the tariff-hike benefits were now fully behind the industry, brokerage house BNP Paribas said in an 11 February note.
