NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel hinted at another tariff hike on Friday, citing the lowest ARPU for telecom service providers in India.
Gopal Vittal, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Airtel, said during the third-quarter investor call that further tariff repair is necessary for the industry to achieve financial stability. Notably, all private telecom service providers, including Bharti Airtel, had increased their tariffs by up to 25 per cent in July 2025.
“I want to underscore that ARPU in India continues to be the lowest globally. Further tariff repair is needed for the industry to be financially stable and deliver reasonable returns on a sustained basis,” said Vittal.
Bharti Airtel, India's second-largest telecom service provider, reported a more than five-fold increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 16,134.6 crore. The company's average revenue per user (ARPU), a key financial performance metric, rose to Rs 245 in the December quarter from Rs 208 in the year-ago period, the highest among its competitors.
In comparison, Reliance Jio's ARPU stands at Rs 203.3, while Vodafone Idea Limited's ARPU is Rs 156 (as of the second quarter of FY 2024-25). Gopal Vittal noted that Bharti Airtel's ARPU was impacted by tariff repairs done last year.
“ARPU came in at Rs 245, compared to Rs 233 in the last quarter. This marks another quarter of industry-leading growth. Our underlying ARPU drivers remain intact. These drivers include feature phone users upgrading to smartphones, prepaid to postpaid upgrades, data monetization, and growth in international roaming,” said Vittal.
Regarding investments in Artificial Intelligence, Vittal said Airtel is closely watching that space. If it finds something meaningful, the company will certainly consider it.
On GPU as a service, he noted, "We've decided to put that on hold for now, as the space is evolving rapidly. The cost, quality, and efficiency of chips are changing fast, and the revenue generated by GPU as a service depends heavily on sophisticated workload management."
After conducting multiple workshops to understand the space, the company has decided not to be an early mover in GPU as a service. However, Vittal emphasized that data centers, particularly AI data centers, remain a focus area.
"We're exploring ways to expand our data center business, and while conversations are ongoing, there's nothing to report at this time."
Vittal also stated that the company is focusing on 80 million potential customers who, the company believes, can upgrade to postpaid. Additionally, Airtel is working to improve its network.
According to Vittal, the final area of focus is enhancing customer experience, which includes investing in upgrading the existing network to achieve lower latency. Airtel’s first anti-spam tool has brought significant relief, alerting 252 million unique customers and effectively combating the spam menace, powered by our AI-driven network.