Early this year, Jio (not covered) had come up with new plans which effectively decreased tariffs to a new low, reversing its own earlier trend of increasing tariffs. The down-trading of tariffs is likely to be more negative for incumbents compared to Jio itself. Reasons are twofold. First, Jio has been increasing customers at a rate of c7-8m per month; against this, incumbents are increasing subscribers at a rate of c1-1.5m. As such impact of lower ARPU may see some offset because of higher growth in subs for Jio but this may not be the case for incumbents. Other than that, Jio collects INR99 as a prime membership fees from its new subscribers and this may limit ARPU downside for Jio this quarter.
