‘Recent tariff hikes may drive more users away from Vodafone Idea’

Vodafone Idea (Vi) is likely to face a tough time ring-fencing its 2G users, with recent tariff hikes making it clear that larger rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel will still go all out to target the struggling operator’s low-end subscribers, say analysts. Telecom market leader Reliance Jio has left its 4G feature phone rates unchanged, while Bharti Airtel has hardly tinkered with its entry-level plans, underlining their ambitions to grab Vi’s 2G users. For other subscriber groups, they have raised peak tariffs by 20-25%.