Airtel says prepaid plan tweaks are only a trial, calls for industry-wide shift in data pricing to lift ARPU

New Delhi: Bharti Airtel Friday told analysts its prepaid tweaks are only a trial run, and that sustained growth in average revenue per user – a key growth metric – will need a sector-wide shift in how data is priced.

Asked on the Q2 FY27 earnings call whether its August intervention was a step towards fixing the industry’s pricing architecture, Shashwat Sharma, managing director of Bharti Airtel, said the problem was structural. The sector, he said, has “a very flat architecture and very low ARPUs.”