Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have both released their quarterly results for Q2 FY23. Airtel said that its ARPU reached Rs 190 during the quarter, while Jio’s ARPU was Rs 177.2. Now what’s worth noting here is that the analysts expected Jio’s ARPU to rise above Rs 180 level, while Airtel’s ARPU was expected to reach Rs 187 figure. What has really happened is that Jio saw a very marginal gain in ARPU while Airtel saw a decent gain. It looks like the effect of the tariff hike for Jio is finally over. Jio implemented a tariff hike back in December 2021. While the other telcos also implemented a prepaid tariff hike during the same time frame, they saw the effects much faster on their ARPU and revenues than Jio, which has a lot of long-term plan subscribers.
Jio isn’t too bothered by a slightly lower ARPU, though. The thing is that Jio likes to play in scale, and it isn’t worried about adding a lot of low-paying subscribers. Airtel wants to get high-paying customers only to get better revenues. Despite that, Airtel also has more than 350 million active paying subscribers with an ARPU of Rs 190.
Airtel and Jio ARPU Target
Airtel’s short-term ARPU target is Rs 200, while Jio has never talked about ARPU targets. In the long term, Airtel wants to capture the Rs 300 ARPU level. The higher the ARPU, the better the revenues for the telcos. To boost their ARPU further, the telcos would definitely go for tariff hikes in the near future. =
