We¡¯ve all been desperately waiting for 5G services to commence in India. However, it looks like it might not be as affordable as 4G was, according to Vodafone Idea CEO, Ravinder Takkar.
Reported first by PTI, Takkar revealed this during an earnings call, where he highlighted how the company had spent a considerable amount in acquiring spectrum in the recently-held auctions that call for a need to charge a premium for the upcoming 5G services.?
The company expects the overall tariff for smartphone services to go up by the end of this year.?
Takkar said in a statement, "Given the fact that a fair amount of money has been spent on the spectrum, we believe that 5G should be priced at a premium to 4G. You can price it at a premium, but of course, within that premium, you could have a situation where the number of gigabytes that you get are more because you are consuming potentially more, given the extra bandwidth that you get in 5G."
Takkar added that the increase in data consumption would depend on use cases being developed and adopted by consumers.
To the unaware, Vodafone Idea acquired spectrum worth Rs 18,000 crores in the recently conducted auctions. This includes radio waves in the mid-band -- 3300MHz -- in 17 priority circles and spectrum in the 26GHz band in 16 circles for 5G services. It even got an additional 4G spectrum in three circles of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab. The novel spectrum brings along with it annual instalment liability of Rs 1,680 crores.
Vodafone Idea posted a loss of 7,296 crore for the June quarter, a little less compared to the same quarter a year ago, which was at 7,319 crore. Its revenue from operations grew to Rs 10,410 crores -- a 14 percent improvement from the year before.?
Vodafone Idea¡¯s Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) stood at Rs 128 per subscriber per quarter compared to Rs 104 in first quarter of FY 2022 -- a 23.4 percent improvement year over year, primarily due to tariff hikes.
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