Airtel to give feature phone space a miss

Bharti Airtel will stay out of feature phone competition as it continues to focus on long-term high-end customers, the management said after the September quarter results. Analysts say it might be the only way for incumbents to increase average revenue per unit (ARPUs) in the long run.

“We have chosen not to yet compete in the VoLTE feature phone space because we believe that there are customers who are using our networks on feature phones. So, our focus will be to actually get them to upgrade directly to smartphones,” said Gopal Vittal, chief executive officer, Bharti Airtel, while addressing analysts after Q2 results.

This strategy is in line with Airtel’s plan to increase minimum ARPU through a revised focus on recharge plans as well as rapid rollout of 4G sites to address a smartphone-led subscriber base. Industry watchers had expected reaction from Airtel following a huge response Reliance Jio got for its feature phone offer launched in August.

Airtel has introduced low ARPU plans across three circles and aims to emulate it across the country in order to introduce some much-desired attrition across its low double-digit ARPU subscriber base. Analysts are of the opinion that part of the almost 12 million subscriber decline might be due to the loss of highend prepaid ARPU base to Jio’s feature phone offering.