Bharti Airtel's CEO, Gopal Vittal, has made his stance clear on 5G monetisation and tariff hikes. Airtel doesn't mind taking the first step to raise tariffs, it is something that the telco has said time and again. When it comes to 5G monetisation, there's of course confusion in the industry. This is because of the lack of 5G applications. Why would a user pay anything extra for 5G?

Is Airtel Ready to Hike Tariffs?

Talking to ET, Vittal said that at the right point, Airtel is ready to take the first step in the industry to hike tariffs. In case it doesn't work out and others don't follow, then Airtel can always roll back the prices. But the telco isn't planning on a big hike. It has already achieved its short-term ARPU (average revenue per user) goal of Rs 200. Now the next goal for Airtel is reaching Rs 300. But that won't happen in one or two jumps.

Explaining this, Vittal told the publication that they can't make big jumps in prices because the customer might not be able to absorb it. Thus, even to reach the Rs 250 ARPU figure, Airtel would take two or three price jumps, he said.

Vittal laid out the factors apart from just price jumps that will help Airtel in increasing ARPU. He said that there are many feature phone users, and as soon as they shift to a smartphone, the ARPU will grow significantly. Then, the conversion of prepaid users to postpaid will aid in boosting ARPU. Airtel also has Airtel Black service, which is the convergence of multiple services, which Vittal believes is the ultimate way to boost ARPU.

What About 5G Monetisation?

Talking to the publication, Vittal kept his stance clear. Airtel doesn't see any point in charging extra for 5G or having separate 5G plans. He said that 5G applications are still missing in the market. The ecosystem needs to punch its weight and create more use cases of 5G apart from 5G FWA (fixed-wireless access) for the customers.

Vittal did mention that they are trying robotics and more with 5G, but still, its use cases are pretty limited.