Bharti Airtel gains 5% as its cheapest prepaid plan gets costlier by ₹30

• Bharti Airtel has discontinued its ₹49 entry level prepaid recharge plan and started ₹79 smart recharge offer.
• Shares of the company rose 5% after the company announced the development.
• With this, the telecom operator says it is focusing on offering superior connectivity solutions.

Shares of Bharti Airtel gained 5% as the company announced that it has discontinued its cheapest prepaid recharge plan of ₹49.

Instead it has started a new prepaid recharge pack of ₹79 that offers up to four times more outgoing minutes of usage to customers along with twice the amount of data. Basically, it has hiked its cheapest prepaid plan to ₹79.

“This change is in line with the company’s focus on offering superior connectivity solutions. Airtel customers on entry level recharges can now stay connected for longer without worrying about their account balance,” the company said in a BSE statement.

“If they have hiked the plan the stock would have reacted but I don’t think there is any long term positive on the stock...eventually they will have to compete with Jio and Vodafone Idea and the space is so overcrowded that eventually none of these players have any pricing power at all.. The stock has really gone nowhere in 13 years now and unlikely to as right now they are competing in a market which is so stiff that everybody wants to gain market share,” said Rajat Sharma, founder of Sana Securities.

Traders in the market must have found this announcement as a positive and that is why the rise in stock price, added Sharma.

Moreover, a report said the telecom stocks were rallying as a report suggested that the government was considering a slew of long-term measures to improve the health of the debt-laden telecom sector, which includes prospectively redefining adjusted gross revenue (AGR) to exclude ‘non-telecom’ items and allowing telcos to surrender unused spectrum for a small penalty.

As per The Economic Times report, the government was also considering other measures with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) including a reduction in licence fees (LF) and spectrum usage charges (SUC) and phasing out of bank guarantees.

SEE ALSO: It's not just Zomato — From Happiest Minds to CDSL, some of India's hottest stocks are melting too

Rolex Rings’ IPO to help company focus on growth and come out of corporate debt restructuring