Airtel to raise mobile call, data rates by mid-2023, says Sunil Mittal

India’s 2nd largest telecommunications company Bharti Airtel will soon raise mobile phone call and data tariffs across all plans by mid-2023, Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said at the Mobile World Congress. A tariff hike is necessary due to a ‘very low’ return on capital in the business, he said. Last month, Bharti Airtel had increased the price of its minimum recharge or its entry-level plan for the 28-day mobile phone by about 57 per cent to Rs 155 in eight circles.

Sunil Mittal also said that Airtel has a healthy balance sheet with no need to raise any capital. “Lot of capital has been injected that has made the balance sheet strong, but the return on capital of this industry is very low. That needs to change. We are talking of small increments that need to come in the Indian tariff situation. I hope half (by mid) of this year,” he told PTI. He added that the company has infused a lot of capital to make the balance sheet strong, however the return on capital in the industry is very low.

Responding to a query on the impact of price increase on people, he said that the proposed hike is low compared to the kind of people’s expenses on other things. “Salaries have gone up, rents have gone up except one thing. There is no one complaining. People are consuming 30 GB for almost paying nothing. We don’t have more Vodafone (Idea) type of scenarios in the country,” he said.

While talking about the impact of inflation and global macroeconomic situation on companies, he said, “Economically, all sectors of the Indian economy are at the moment getting a lot of attention from the government, from investors. FDI is really coming in a very big way. Inflation is being reasonably checked now. I think India’s entire focus on this economy and infrastructure is paying rich dividends.” Sunil Mittal also talked about India’s focus on digital infrastructure. The Airtel Chairman said that the government has “done a lot to make telecom industry infrastructure healthy with support to BSNL and Vodafone Idea”. Recently, the government had converted interest dues of Rs 16,133 crore of debt-ridden Vodafone Idea into equity.

Bharti Airtel had, on Monday, also announced that it has topped the 10 million unique 5G user mark on its network and had maintained that it is well poised to cover every town and key rural areas with Airtel 5G service by the end of March 2024. While the company is focused on the rollout of the network, Mittal said that Airtel will not shutdown 2G services until the customer base migrates to 4G or 5G. “We are now coming below 100 million – one of the smallest pool of 2G customers. But we can’t leave them stranded,” he said.