Airtel Digital TV Predicts Rise In ARPU Owing To The New TRAI Mandate

Airtel Digital TV has said that the new TRAI tariff regime will help the company in upping its average revenue per user (ARPU) in the middle segment. As per a report by Television Post, CEO Gopal Vittal told analysts during the Q3 earnings conference “On the DTH, I think the business is continuing to grow. The new tariff order is now in place that came into effect from today. We are implementing the order as we speak.”

ARPU to Increase Slowly

The CEO also said that the move would play itself out in the longer term as the ARPU is expected to grow on the middle side as people start to pick up the channels which they watch. He also said that this is going to take time and the industry will have to see how this turns out.

Vittal also said that Airtel is also focusing more and more on content to build customer loyalty. The #AirtelThanks programme across prepaid and postpaid segment is one of the ways, Airtel is doing that. Informing more about how Airtel plans to aspire more loyalty amongst its customer, Vittal said, “If you are on a price plan of Rs 199 and above, that content includes the alliance we have with Zee, with some of the Hooq content that we have as well as a bunch of others. Of course, we also have deals with Amazon and Netflix for higher-end plans. So with Amazon, with Rs 399 and above, Amazon is packaged for a year. And Netflix at Rs 499 and above, Netflix is given free for 3 months.”

Airtel to Strengthen its Content Segment with Partnerships

Airtel Global CEO, Nilanjan Roy also said that Airtel is improving the content segment with the help of postpaid plans and it is also shipping Amazon Prime video and Netflix subscription to its select customers. All postpaid plans above Rs 499 come with bundled Netflix subscription for three months. Further, the Rs 399 Infinity plan by Airtel also offers Amazon Prime subscription to its subscribers. The CFO said that Airtel is walking on its philosophy of being an “Open telco” and thus it is strengthening its content portfolio with more and more alliances and partnerships. Expanding more on this, he said, “Airtel TV Premium was launched – offering latest movies, original shows, and sports to our high ARPU customers. We enhanced our content portfolio with original shows from ZEE5, and NDTV Hop – exclusively available to Airtel. Also, to encourage Airtel users to sample our entertainment services, we have integrated our offerings in the My Airtel app.”―Telecom Talk