‘Still by far the cheapest in the world’: Sunil Bharti Mittal says mobile tariffs should rise to ₹350 a month

Bharti Airtel founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal has said India's mobile tariffs should rise to an average revenue per user (ARPU) of around ₹350 a month, arguing that rising operating costs and the need for massive investments in digital infrastructure make current pricing inadequate.

Speaking to PTI in an interview marking Bharti Enterprises' 50th year, Mittal said the ₹300 monthly ARPU he had advocated a decade ago was no longer sufficient because of inflation and higher costs of electricity, fuel, employees and administration.

"Everything is up. So ₹350 would be the right ARPU for our industry, and it will still be by far the cheapest anywhere in the world," he said. However, he offered no timeline for when the industry could reach that level, responding, "I don't know."

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Mittal said India needed to significantly expand its telecom infrastructure, pointing out that China has more than 1 million mobile towers compared with around 350,000 in India. The country would need to at least double its existing tower infrastructure, alongside laying more fibre, building submarine cables and expanding satellite communication connectivity.

He argued that operators needed stronger balance sheets to sustain investments in the digital ecosystem, which supports services ranging from UPI payments and banking to education, direct benefit transfers, healthcare records and entertainment.

Mittal also highlighted the substantial investments made in 5G, saying spectrum purchases had cost operators lakhs of crores of rupees, followed by another ₹1.5 lakh crore in network infrastructure. However, the technology had yet to generate the new revenue streams the industry had anticipated.

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He said telecom operators undertake the heavy infrastructure investments but do not receive valuations and profitability comparable to digital platforms that depend on their networks.

A ₹350 monthly ARPU would translate into roughly ₹10-12 a day, which Mittal described as affordable given the range of services mobile connectivity enables. He said entry-level packages could remain above ₹200, while premium plans could be priced at ₹500-800 or higher.

Airtel reported an ARPU of ₹271 in the September quarter, up from ₹256 a year earlier, putting the proposed industry level around 29% higher.