Bharti Airtel is leaving no stone unturned to give better services to the customers by simplifying its businesses.
The company said even though the industry has changed a lot and average revenue per user (ARPU) has also come down a lot, post the launch of Reliance Jio, the market is sustainable and ideal for the players to survive, a top official at Airtel said.
“In a market of 1.3 billion people, three private operators (Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and RJio) and a government player (BSNL) to serve them, is a very sustainable and ideal structure. In terms of relative position of players, you have Vodafone-Idea which will have 39-40 per cent market share, us 33 per cent (including Tata and Telenor share) and RJio about 20 per cent market share,” Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel, told
He said in future, there will be three equal-sized or similar level of market share of these large players. “We are quite relaxed about that because we think that the primary thing to sustain is to realise ‘Digital India’ and we are here to make sure that we grow market share profitably and sustainable,” he said.
Vittal said now is not the time to make strategies to become No.1 or No.2 player, but a strategy on how to retain customers and make more profitable and sustainable business.
Upbeat on data usage
“We have been in some financial spin in the last 12-18 months…we have seen ARPUs crashing down and pricing erode. But, I look at the positive side. For example, last year, on an average, people who spent 190 minutes every day with their device are spending 240 minutes today. So it is a good thing for us,” he explained.
That is why it is exciting time for the company because in a market of three players, and 1.3 billion customers, the device has become a centre and that is why also the company is tying up with content providers. For instance, Netflix, Amazon and Symantec (for cyber security).
The company is also investing a lot to expand its network and technologies. In 2016, the company spent ₹16,000 crore on capex, last year increased by 50 per cent to ₹24,000 crore investment and this year again ₹24,000 crore, Vittal said. “By March 2019, we would have invested ₹2,70,000 crore on capex and network plus spectrum. Now, we have tripled our tower and massively increased our fibre on ground,” he said.
On asked about call drops and slow network at some places, Vittal said, “All the operators are in the same situation right now. But, one of the things we are looking at is re-farming some of our spectrum also. For example, 3G as a technology will die-out soon and the 3G spectrum needs to be re-farmed to 4G.”
However, he said 2G will remain because there are devices at ₹300-400 for the low-end consumers and that is important and somebody has to serve them.
Software upgrade
On improving of network, the company also looking at a lot of upgrades in the software. “Our data have gone almost 26 fold in the last 18-20 months, so keeping pace with that has led to a lot of congestion and the reason for capex going up so much is because of all these,” he quipped.
On Internet telephony and its impact, Vittal said that whether one uses them as a traditional call or use it over a VOIP, it really doesn’t matter because now we are getting a certain amount of ARPU.
On 5G and its progress, Vittal added that the use cases have to develop in India and right now the talks are only surrounding around driverless cars and robotic surgery.
“We think India should be in the forefront of the technology and come with the rest of the world. We are also working on how we can develop more use cases and we will welcome the auction (spectrum) as and when it happens,” he added.