Airtel the Congress Party, Vodafone the Janta / Samajwadi and Idea the Communist Party of Indian Telecom Sector have resorted to cahoot loot of Indian consumers for deacdes, haven't yet rolled out comparable packages to that of Jio Prime to their consumers.
For now, discerning consumers who threaten to churn out are offered attractive retention benefits; additional 10-30GB of data per month along with unlimited calling for Rs345. Our channel checks indicate that A-Vo-Id Lobby is unwilling to publicise such offers given downtrading as well as network capacity constraints.
We expect further ARPU dilution even after Jio starts charging as we expect significant downtrading of incumbents' high ARPU consumers. Recharge choice of Jio's consumers will be key to gauge data consumption habits; if more consumers opt for Rs303, telcos' revenue could improve as this implies sticky consumption habits. That said, initially we expect Jio to further eat into incumbents? revenues, resulting in persistent revenue weakness for the telecom sector.
