Bad news for Vodafone-Idea users, prepaid plans may become expensive again this year, confirms CEO

There is bad news for the users of telecom company Vodafone-Idea (Vi). This loss-making company can once again increase the prices of its plans this year. According to a PTI report, a top-level official of the company said that the tariff may be revised again this year, but it will depend on the tariff hike made in November last year and the market reaction.

Vodafone-Idea MD and CEO Ravinder Takkar says that the company has fixed the price of the cheapest plan offering service validity of about one month at Rs 99, which is not too expensive according to the users using 4G services. Takkar further said that once again this year the plans can be made expensive.

Subscriber loss to the company
Vodafone-Idea lags far behind Airtel and Jio in terms of subscriber base. Vodafone-Idea’s subscriber base has come down from 26.98 crores to 24.72 crores in a year after the plans became expensive. Despite the tariff being expensive, the company’s ARPU i.e. average revenue per user has come down by 5 percent to Rs 115, which used to be Rs 121 in the same quarter of 2020-21.

The troubles of Vodafone-Idea, which is making huge losses, are not taking the name of lessening. Last week, the company reported that the company’s total loss had increased to Rs 7,230.9 crore in the third quarter ended December 2021, from Rs 4,532.1 crore in the same quarter a year ago.

Confirmeb by CEO

This has been confirmed by Vodafone Idea CEO Ravindra Takkar. A few days ago, Motilal Oswal Financial Services had said in a report that Vodafone Idea should make its tariff plans expensive, although during that time the company did not make any official statement on this matter.

Ravindra Takkar has said that the company’s cheapest 4G plan of Rs 99 is not more expensive according to the needs of the users. He said that the company will make its plans expensive this year as well. Vodafone Idea plans may become expensive by the end of 2022 or early 2023. The new tariff is expected to increase the average revenue per user (ARPU) by at least 1.9 times for the company.