Airtel CEO confirms hike on recharge plans by mid-2023

Sunil Bharti Mittal, Bharti Airtel Chairman, recently announced that the telecom operator plans to increase rates for top-up plans in the coming months. The big decision comes after Airtel started to phase out its Rs 99 minimum top-up plan from many circles and increased value by increasing the price of its minimum top-up plan by about 57 per cent to Rs 155.

Recently at the ongoing Mobile World Congress, in an interaction with the press, Mr Mittal told PTI that the company is seeing a "very poor" return on capital in the business. So, to boost profitability, Airtel is expected to increase rates on its top-up plans by mid-2023." (The rate increase) will happen across the board," Mittal said at MWC.

He further said that Airtel has large capital, which has strengthened its balance sheet. However, due to low profitability, capital changes are necessary. "Lot of capital has been injected that has made the balance sheet strong, but the return on capital of this industry is very low. That needs to change. We are talking of small increments that need to come in the Indian tariff situation. I hope half (by mid) of this year," Mittal said.

When questioned about the impact of the price increase on people at the bottom of the pyramid, Mittal said that the increase in fees will be a bit lower than what people spend on other things. While people experience price increases in various markets and are still not complaining about the price increase. So for the revised rates as well, the impact won't be as significant. "Salaries have gone up, rents have gone except one thing. There is no one complaining. People are consuming 30 GB for almost paying nothing. We don't have more Vodafone type of scenarios in the country. We need a robust telecom company in the country. The dream of India's digital economic growth is fully realised. I think the government is fully conscious, the regulator is conscious, and people are also very conscious." Sunil Bharti Mittal added.