High consumption at rock-bottom tariffs killing telcos: Sunil Mittal

“We need to have a balance between requirement of investments and consumer on the other side,” Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel, said after a pre-Budget meet between Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and corporate leaders.

“My view is Rs 200 ARPU (average revenue per user) is eventually going to Rs 300 ARPU... At the lower end, Rs 100 for a customer over a month of consuming rich data, voice and other services and on the upper end Rs 450-500, therefore, blended eventual landing point of Rs 300 a month, which will still be $4 a month... by far, the lowest anywhere in the world and yet consuming two or three times more data than anywhere else in the world,” Mittal said.

The industry needs to get to that balance, he said adding that Trai needs to work on this as the industry “has not been able to have an orderly mechanism to get to that point”.

“We are unnecessarily killing this industry in a manner and way that is not conducive for our industry, and that’s why we need Trai intervention,” Mittal added.

The comments of the Airtel chief come just days after TRAI initiated talks to prescribe floor price for call and data.