Bharti Airtel’s mobile average revenue per user (ARPU) is projected to reach \u20b9325 by financial year 2029, driven by strategic premiumisation efforts, increased data consumption, and anticipated tariff revisions, Financial Express reported, citing research from HSBC. This forecast by brokerage HSBC highlights Airtel’s focus on extracting greater value from its existing subscriber base. <\/p>\n
HSBC analysts expect Airtel’s mobile ARPU to climb from \u20b9264 at the end of the June 2026 quarter to \u20b9277 in FY27, \u20b9310 in FY28, and ultimately \u20b9325 in FY29. The company’s ARPU stood at \u20b9257 at the end of FY26, showing a 2.7% sequential increase in the June quarter. While the industry awaits the next round of headline tariff hikes, with expectations for an increase in the second half of the current fiscal, HSBC specifically anticipates a tariff hike in the first quarter of calendar 2027 to further boost Airtel’s ARPU. <\/p>\n
However, the brokerage suggests that the majority of this improvement will stem from Airtel’s internal strategies to encourage existing subscribers to increase their spending. HSBC forecasts an 8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in mobile ARPU over FY26-29, which is expected to translate into an 11% CAGR in India mobile revenue. <\/p>\n
Airtel’s structural growth drivers are seen as robust, with analysts citing higher data usage, migration to more valuable plans, and an increase in high-value postpaid subscribers. The company’s network data consumption provides significant room for such upgrades; total data traffic grew 11% sequentially to 31.1 billion GB in the June quarter, and per capita consumption rose 9.6% to 34.4 GB per month. <\/p>\n
Airtel has already reported organic ARPU growth from its premiumisation strategy. Initiatives like Fastlane, which leverages 5G slicing technology for faster data services, are designed to encourage customers towards higher-value propositions. <\/p>\n
The operator is also using customer-level data analytics to refine its prepaid portfolio, exemplified by the discontinuation of its \u20b9299 plan, described by management as a product adjustment based on usage patterns rather than a tariff hike. Additional levers include migrating customers from 2G to 4G and 5G, converting prepaid users to postpaid, monetising increased data consumption, and growing international roaming revenue. Airtel has also advocated for a more sustainable pricing architecture, focusing on better monetisation of high data users instead of broad unlimited data offerings. <\/p>\n
Beyond its core mobility business, Airtel is also poised to expand its homes segment, utilising fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) technologies. HSBC projects homes revenue to achieve a 23% CAGR over FY26-29, with subscriber numbers expected to increase from 14.2 million in FY26 to 25.4 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bharti Airtel’s mobile average revenue per user (ARPU) is projected to reach \u20b9325 by financial year 2029, driven by strategic premiumisation efforts, increased data consumption, and anticipated tariff revisions, Financial Express reported, citing research from HSBC. This forecast by brokerage HSBC highlights Airtel’s focus on extracting greater value from its existing subscriber base. HSBC analysts expect Airtel’s mobile ARPU to climb from \u20b9264 at the end of the June 2026 quarter to \u20b9277 in FY27, \u20b9310 in FY28, and ultimately \u20b9325 in FY29. The company’s ARPU stood at \u20b9257 at the end of FY26, showing a 2.7% sequential increase in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1033095,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033094\/revisions\/1033095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}