Mobile phone firms hike call rates, cut freebies
23 Jan 2013
With India's mobile phone service providers showing a sagging bottom line, the inevitable came to pass today. Three of the biggest operators - Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone – hiked their voice call rates by sizeable margins; close to 100 per cent in some schemes.
Bharti Airtel, India's biggest mobile phone services company, said it will hike voice call tariffs in a phased manner and not across all circles simultaneously. Airtel is reducing free minutes by 10-25 per cent and has increased prices of some call vouchers for prepaid customers by Rs5-15.
"We have been reiterating that increase in prices is inevitable, which is reflected from the fact that despite rising costs, tariffs have been falling over the past 12 quarters," Sunil Mittal's Bharti Airtel said in a statement.
The company gave no details of the call price increase, but it could translate into a doubling of the tariff from Rs1 to Rs2 a minute in premium circles like Mumbai and Delhi.
The Aditya Birla Group-promoted Idea Cellular too has also gone for a steep hike from 1.2 paise per second to 2 paise per second. The company is also withdrawing promotional offers on voice calls in some circles.
Airtel said its plans to raise call rates have been submitted to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
