India's leading integrated Telecom Giant, Airtel expects the high end market with 4G handsets to be more susceptible to the Reliance Jio 4G broadband offering. It does not see the need to respond across segments but match pricing only on 4G. The headline data pricing is about Rs. 250/GB, but there is a lot of discounting that is happening at the backend. For the high value regular users, pricing works out closer to Rs. 150/GB.
Airtel's New Post-Paid Strategy
It has recently become the leading postpaid operator. It is looking to ring-fence postpaid subs offering three pricing innovations, a. Myplan (consumer can determine price) b. Unlimited infinity: (unlimited offnet and online and higher price points) and c. family plan (get more and spend more).
In a recent development Airtel has announced unlimited voice plans: (a) INR1,199 plan where subscribers can avail themselves to unlimited calls and 1 GB of data. (b) INR1599 plan where subscribers are offered unlimited calls and 5 GB of data. We note that Bharti?s existing plan at INR949 offered unlimited local calls and 1 GB of data and subscribers had to pay an incremental cINR150-200 for unlimited STD and roaming calls. In other words the new INR1,199 plan seems to be more of a repackaging exercise. In our view, the new tariff plans are more of an attempt to capture subscribers? mind share with free voice ahead of Reliance Jio Launch.
Airtel stepped up the pedal on generating higher volumes. The company said it will continue to follow this strategy and will compete aggressively if revenue market share does not flow through.
