Is the telecom industry set to see another round of tariff hikes?
Reliance Communications (RCom) has announced increasing tariffs by up to 20 per cent for all its pre-paid customers. Headline Tariffs will increase from 1.5 paise to 1.6 paise per second, while tariffs on discounted and promotional plans will increase by up to 20 per cent. The revised tariffs, which will be applicable for pre-paid customers across the country, come into effect from 25 April 2014.
“At Reliance Communications, we continue to focus on growing profitable/paid minutes on our network and the current tariff hikes are part of our continued efforts to reduce free and discounted minutes, & offset the ever-rising costs of input materials,” says Mr Gurdeep Singh, Chief Executive Officer, Consumer Business, Reliance Communications. “We expect RPMs to improve over the next few quarters and this will impact our performance positively,” he added.
The tariff hike comes shortly after Bharti Airtel announced raising mobile services rates of both data and calls under select schemes. “There has been change in Airtel services rates from April 3 onwards. Airtel has reduced validity of Rs 125 mobile internet pack from 28 to 21 days,” a mobile dealer in Delhi NCR told a news agency.
The telecom operators have been looking to increase margins at the same time not increasing a lot of burden on end users. Since the operators are now focussing on the data segment, raising voice tariffs is unlikely to have an adverse impact on users and operators.
Check out the indicative list of tariff changes below:
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