Bharti Airtel’s mobile average revenue per user (Arpu) could rise to Rs 325 by FY29 as it seeks to extract more value from its existing customer base through premiumisation, higher data usage and a sharper pricing strategy, analysts said.
Brokerage HSBC expects Airtel’s mobile Arpu to rise from Rs 264 at the end of the June 2026 quarter to Rs 277 in FY27, Rs 310 in FY28 and Rs 325 in FY29. The company’s Arpu stood at Rs 257 at the end of FY26 and rose 2.7% sequentially in the June quarter.
The forecast comes as the industry continues to await the next round of headline tariff hikes. The last industry-wide revision came in mid-2024, with analysts largely expecting another increase in the second half of the current fiscal. HSBC expects a tariff hike in the first quarter of calendar 2027 to provide an additional leg-up to Airtel’s Arpu.
However, the brokerage expects much of the improvement to come from Airtel’s efforts to get existing subscribers to spend more. It forecasts an 8% compound annual growth in mobile Arpu over FY26-29, translating into an 11% CAGR in India mobile revenue.
Strategic Premiumisation
“We are constructive on Airtel’s structural growth drivers,” HSBC analysts said, citing higher data usage, migration to higher-value plans and gains in high-value postpaid subscribers.
Airtel’s data consumption provides room for such upgrades. Total data traffic on its network grew 11% sequentially to 31.1 billion GB in the June quarter, while per capita consumption rose 9.6% to 34.4 GB a month.
The company has said it is already seeing organic Arpu growth from its premiumisation strategy. Offerings such as Fastlane, which uses 5G slicing technology to provide faster data services to eligible users, are aimed at encouraging customers to opt for higher-value propositions.
Airtel is also using customer-level data analytics to reshape its prepaid portfolio. Management has described the discontinuation of its Rs 299 plan as a product adjustment based on usage patterns rather than a tariff hike.
Other levers include moving customers from 2G to 4G and 5G, migrating prepaid users to postpaid, monetising higher data consumption and increasing international roaming revenue. Airtel has also made a case for a more sustainable pricing architecture, including better monetisation of customers with high data usage rather than offering unlimited data broadly.
Expansion Beyond Mobility
Beyond mobility, Airtel is expected to scale up its homes business, using fibre-to-the-home and 5G fixed wireless access. HSBC expects homes revenue to grow at a 23% CAGR over FY26-29, with subscribers rising to 25.4 million from 14.2 million in FY26.