According to Deloitte, the telecom industry needs to increase the price for voice and data services to sustain operations in 2013.
The telecom tariffs in the country came down in 2010 with the emergence of per second billing in anticipation of more services being launched by operators who received licences in 2008, which were later cancelled by the Supreme Court order.
Higher operating costs will lead majority of players undertaking tariff hikes – either in the form of withdrawing discounts or increasing tariffs nominally. As per the research firm, players can afford discrete price increase since even a hike of Re 0.1 would translate into additional revenue of Rs 10 million for the operators.
Also, the revenue growth for players from internet or data services, is not commensurate with the large number of subscribers using these services. Deloitte underscores that the growth in data traffic is not translating into equivalent increase in average revenue per MB. Further, in 2013 the rollout and uptake of 4G will be slow in the country though worldwide the number of 4G users is increasing.
