Bharti Airtel’s management has expressed dissatisfaction with the slow pace of growth in industry average revenue per user (ARPU), attributing it to a flawed pricing architecture. The telco said it would intensify its focus on existing growth levers to improve this key performance metric.
Airtel’s ARPU declined 0.6 per cent sequentially to Rs 257 in the fourth quarter of financial year 2025-26, though management adjusted for two fewer billing days compared to the previous quarter to project a modest underlying increase of Rs 3 in the metric.
The management said the sluggish ARPU growth stems from a pricing model that is fundamentally broken. The Indian market’s heavy dependence on unlimited data plans caps revenue yields at around Rs 340-350, which is significantly lower than markets in Europe or the United States where unlimited plans are priced at far higher levels. To drive sustained ARPU growth, the industry needs to transition to a usage-based tiered model offering small, medium, large and extra-large data allowances, which would create a natural pathway for customers to upgrade based on their actual consumption patterns.
To improve ARPU in the near term, Airtel said it would focus on increasing post-paid penetration within its existing customer base and encouraging users to move to higher-tier plans as their data usage grows.
The management also said the company would place greater emphasis on fibre-based broadband services, given global supply constraints affecting memory and chipsets. Airtel is accordingly increasing capital expenditure on fibre infrastructure, with future investments directed at future-proofing the business and building positions in new growth areas.
