Bharti Airtel discontinued four of its prepaid plans on August 12, and five days later Reliance Jio relaunched its Prime membership programme, coinciding with ten years since Jio’s commercial launch. The moves came against a backdrop of a strong June quarter for the sector, and set the stage for what brokerages expect to be an industry-wide tariff hike later in the fiscal year. Here is a detailed look at how the three telcos fared in Q1FY27, and what they did on pricing.
Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel‘s net profit for the quarter ended June rose 37% year-on-year to Rs 8,167 crore, up from Rs 5,928 crore a year earlier. Revenue from operations grew 18% to Rs 58,539 crore. Sequentially, profit rose 11.5% and revenue was up 5.6%.
Consolidated EBITDA rose 19% year-on-year to Rs 33,599 crore, with the margin inching up 40 basis points to 57.4%. India business revenue stood at Rs 41,214 crore, up 9.7% year-on-year, aided by portfolio premiumisation in mobile and momentum in the homes and enterprise segments. ARPU rose 2.72% sequentially to Rs 264. The company’s total customer base reached 680.9 million, up 12.5% year-on-year, with India accounting for 491.9 million of that base.
On August 12, Airtel withdrew its Rs 299, Rs 579, Rs 619 and Rs 649 prepaid plans. The Rs 299 pack, which offered 1GB of data a day, was the cheapest entry point for an unlimited daily data plan. With it gone, Airtel’s cheapest unlimited plan now starts at Rs 349.
Vodafone Idea
Vodafone Idea‘s net loss narrowed sharply to Rs 3,754 crore for the June quarter, from Rs 6,611 crore a year earlier. Revenue rose 6% year-on-year to Rs 11,689 crore. ARPU improved 10.2% to Rs 195 from Rs 177.
The company added subscribers for the first time since the 2018 merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, with its base rising to 19.31 crore from 19.28 crore in the previous quarter. Separately, TRAI data for June showed Vodafone Idea’s net additions accelerating to 163,757 from 121,289 in May, though most of that growth came from lower-yielding machine-to-machine connections. Excluding those, the company still lost 0.46 million users.
Vodafone Idea has not changed its own pricing yet. It is watching how Airtel’s customers respond to the withdrawn plans over the coming months before deciding whether to follow with a similar move.
Reliance Jio
Jio Platforms reported a 9.2% rise in profit after tax to Rs 7,764 crore for the quarter. The company has also filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with Sebi, on June 19, for a fresh issue of up to 27 crore equity shares, with plans to list on both the NSE and BSE.
On August 17, Jio revived its Prime membership, a scheme first used at its 2016 launch. The new version costs Rs 300 as a one-time fee and includes price protection against any tariff hike until September 2027, along with a cashback voucher on new connections. Jio kept its own Rs 299 entry-level unlimited plan unchanged, preserving its pricing gap against Airtel’s new Rs 349 floor. TRAI data for June showed Jio adding 2.15 million wireless subscribers, behind Airtel’s 2.99 million, while holding the largest overall market share at 39.27%.
Conclusion
The June-quarter numbers point to a sector moving from subscriber growth to squeezing more revenue out of existing users. Airtel led on profit and used plan withdrawals to push up its ARPU floor. Jio countered not with a price hike but with a membership scheme designed to lock in loyalty ahead of one. Vodafone Idea posted its first subscriber gain since its merger, but is holding back on any pricing changes of its own for now.