Airtel gets the ‘idea’ of offering more data benefits for prepaid customers

Bharti Airtel, India’s leading telecom service provider has followed its rival Idea Cellular, thus cutting down effective data rates for its prepaid customers and offering up to 67% more benefits to the customers for the same price.

A similar strategy was adopted by Idea Cellular, India’s No. 3 carrier, last week, when it slashed effective data rates and started to offer up to 45% more benefits for its prepaid users in India who use less than 1GB of data. On the other hand, Vodafone India, which is the second largest mobile career in the country, is also expected to follow the same path in the coming days, sources told ET.

All this could be cited to woo mobile internet users ahead of Reliance Jio Infocom's 4G launch.

Industry analysts are of the opinion that these telcos aren't directly reducing the rates, but offering more services in turn of less money. Using this strategy, they will be able to protect crucial average revenue per user (ARPU).

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