Outlook for Bharti Airtel remains challenging as ARPU continues to decline

Heightened competition across customer segments, especially from Jio could translate into steepest industry ARPU fall in three years

After a lacklustre September quarter, which saw a further decline in average revenue per user or ARPU of telecom operators, the outlook for Bharti Airtel (Airtel) and Vodafone Idea remains challenging and the worries could aggravate in the near term. Though both Reliance Jio (Jio) and Bharti Airtel saw their ARPU fall 2-4 per cent in the September quarter, concerns are only mounting for the latter.

Analysts believe the challenge for the incumbents — Airtel and Vodafone Idea — is on three counts: Stemming the fall of India’s wireless revenues, bringing down debt, and control costs. First, the pressure on revenues,