Indian mobile service provider Reliance Communications today announced 7-20 percent increase in telecom tariffs.
The Anil Ambani-owned company expects RPMs to improve over the next few quarters.
Its rivals such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Tata Docomo are expected to follow suit.
The Indian telecoms said Headline Tariffs will increase from 1.5paise to 1.6 paise per second, while tariffs on discounted and promotional plans will increase by up to 20 percent.
For instance, Reliance Communications has increased its headline tariff to 1.6 paise per second from 1.5 per second, increasing the rate by 7 percent.
The revised tariffs, which will be applicable for pre-paid customers across the country, come into effect from 25 April 2014.
Reliance Communications’ STV 43 package now offers 80 minutes of STD against 100 minutes earlier, indicating an increase of 20 percent in rate.
STV 148 will now offer 400 minutes of local calls against 500 minutes earlier, raising tariffs by 20 percent, Reliance Communications said.
Reliance Communications said STV 259 will now offer 2,500 minutes of On-Net as compared with 3,000 minutes earlier. This means, Reliance Communications is increasing the rate by 17 percent for the STV 259 package.
“At Reliance Communications, we continue to focus on growing profitable/paid minutes on our network and the current tariff hikes are part of our continued efforts to reduce free and discounted minutes, & offset the ever-rising costs of input materials,” said Gurdeep Singh, chief executive officer, Consumer Business, Reliance Communications.
CARE Research today indicated that the revenue of Indian telecom operators will be in single digits for the next two years. The report also said there is strong revival of the Indian telecom industry — boosted by the data growth. 3G subscriber base rose by 80-90 percent in 2013.
