Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular have time and again said that they’ll be slowly but surely trying to increase the Revenue Per Minute by withdrawing the benefits given to customers by means of Special Tariff Vouchers, Various Packs, etc. Most of the action was higher in local packs for on-net calls among others.
DSLIndia has done an Exclusive Market Research on all the STVs / Packs modified by Airtel in May 2013 and we’ll illustrate how these are helping the company boost their RPM and Margins.
Airtel in Andhra Circle Reduced the benefits on Seconds Pack of Rs29 from 2600 minutes to 2300 minutes which has translated to the company in increasing RPM by 13%.
Airtel in Gujarat Circle Minutes Reduced the Local Free Minutes from 100 to 50 on the Rs24 Pack, Validity Reduced from 7 to 4 Days thus translating at least 50% increase in RPM.
Vodafone in Delhi Reduced validity as well as free minutes on Rs 29 Pack from 97 Local mins to 75 free to Own Network and Validity reduced from 7 to 5 days, thus seeing an increase of 40% in RPM.
Idea in Maharashtra Circle, where it is the Market Leader has Increased cost of voucher of Local Pack of Rs34 to Rs 66 by maintaining the tariffs and validity.
We see such changes across the board based on Data Analytics Team. It is possible that while tariff hikes were taken in few vouchers, others were untouched, providing customers an opportunity to avoid the hikes. You can view the detailed price / tariff hike charts of Idea and Vodafone. This makes us believe that with a majority of vouchers now being subject to hikes, such opportunities to downtrade are limited for the consumer and thus has to pay more for the voice calls.