Airtel Scraps 5 Prepaid Plans; What The Tariff Reshuffle Means For Users

Bharti Airtel has discontinued five prepaid plans priced at ₹299, ₹319, ₹579, ₹619 and ₹649 across India as part of a selective tariff move aimed at simplifying its pricing structure and improving average revenue per user (ARPU), according to a Moneycontrol report.

The biggest change is at the ₹299 price point. The plan, which offered 1.5GB of daily data for 28 days, has been discontinued. The next available option is the ₹349 plan, which offers 2GB of daily data for 28 days, effectively raising the price by 16% for customers moving to that pack.

Airtel has also discontinued the ₹319 30-day plan, along with the ₹579, ₹619 and ₹649 plans. Lower-priced options, including the ₹199 plan with 2GB of data for 28 days and the ₹219 plan with 3GB of data for 28 days, remain available.

Why Is Airtel Reshuffling Its Prepaid Plans?

The plan changes come as Airtel pushes for a shift in telecom pricing, with higher-data-using customers paying more instead of operators relying mainly on broad-based tariff hikes.

Airtel Executive Vice-Chairman Gopal Vittal had highlighted the need for a change in pricing architecture during the company's Q1FY27 earnings call. “The most important thing is to repair the pricing architecture,” Vittal said, arguing that very low-priced plans with unlimited data can limit ARPU and are not sustainable for telecom operators.

Vittal said that as customers move towards larger data plans, a more sensible pricing structure could help telecom companies achieve sustained ARPU growth over the next five to seven years without necessarily raising entry-level prices.

What Does This Mean For Telecom Tariffs?

Airtel's move comes as operators focus on improving monetisation. In the June quarter, Airtel's mobile ARPU rose 2.7% to ₹264 from ₹257 in the previous quarter. Reliance Jio's ARPU increased marginally to ₹215.6 from ₹214, while Vodafone Idea's ARPU rose 1.7% to ₹177 from ₹174.

Vodafone Idea has also called for tariff repair and higher ARPU to strengthen its finances and support network investments. Analysts have estimated that Indian telecom operators may need another 10-15% tariff increase to support 5G investments and improve financial returns.

However, a broad-based tariff hike may take a few more months. BofA Securities recently estimated that the next headline tariff increase could come around March-April 2027, following state elections scheduled for early 2027, according to the publication.