It is no surprise that Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel will earn the maximum revenues out of mobile revenues and other telecom services provided. Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) can follow the top two telcos, but they won’t even reach near the figure of revenue market share that Airtel and Jio will have. According to the Bernstein report, by 2025, Bharti Airtel will have a revenue market share of 31%, while Jio will have a revenue market share of 47%. Jio’s subscriber market share is further expected to reach 48% by the same time frame.
Reliance Jio No Longer Requires Price Cuts
As per analysts, price cuts aren’t required by Reliance Jio anymore. The telco already has the biggest subscriber and revenue market share in India. This means that the tariff hikes are very near. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea already hiked the tariffs indirectly by removing the Rs 49 plan for the users in the September quarter. The telcos will now focus on increasing revenue from operations. The last tariff hikes for the telecom industry came way back in 2019. Since then, no major changes to tariffs has been made. However, that should change by the time India gets live 5G networks. Bernstein believes that just like 2019, the operators would look to increase tariffs by 25% - 30% this time as well. It will help the operators in increasing their average revenue per share (ARPU). Jio recently reported an increased ARPU of Rs 143.6, which is not that bad, but that is only out of removing inactive customers from the subscriber base. With the tariff hikes, the ARPU for the telcos will be bumped up significantly, which will solve all of their cash flow issues. Especially for Vodafone Idea, a positive cash flow is very necessary to make all the future investments in 5G and also keep expanding the 4G networks across the country.
