Divya Bhaskar - Inflation to hit telecom industry, tariff likely to go up

From Divya Bhaskar

Translation:

Inflation to hit telecom industry, tariff likely to go up Birju Shah, Ahmedabad Rising inflation is taking a toll on telecom industry. It would not be surprising if call tariffs witness a hike in near future, as telcos are fighting against increasing input costs. Now telcos are compelled to cut cost and also they have zeroed down on slashing discounts too. However, on the other hand, in order to propel the momentum in mobile telephony, Vodafone has in fact reduced price of data services from 10p/kb to 2p/kb, which is 80% reduction. In Gujarat 3G subscribers have steeply increased and around 1 lakh blackberry subscribers are using this service. According to Brajesh Bajpai, CEO, Vodafone West Ltd (Gujarat Circle),due to rising inflation chances of further cut in tariff is very faint. Moreover, smaller player, who ignited a price war to tap more market share, are now out and in current financial year the spectrum cost too will be a key factor on input cost front. So, therefore, a price rise is obvious. Interestingly, in order to combat the increasing cost, now customized discount offers are born and through which customers can use mobile services as per their needs. Since last 15 years mobile telecom industry has seen a price cut which is now going to vanish. Though Q4 of 2012-13 is reasonably good, there are several challenges for telecos. In Gujarat, Vodafone has 1.60 crore subscribers and the daily usage stands at 21 crore minutes. With its wider and deeper network, Vodafone covers 97.4% of total population of Gujarat. Vodafone has over 7000 towers in Gujarat and it continues to weighs more on network expansion along with service quality. 4G’s success depends on handsets “There is much gaga over 4G since a long but the success of 4G is heavily depended on the availability of 4G handsets. There are many things to be clarified regarding 4G. The arrival of 4G will certainly boost 3G also.”- Mr. Bajpai