bharti airtel: Airtel brings Black plans to lift ARPUs

Bharti Airtel, India’s second largest telecom operator, has launched all-in-one plans, called Airtel Black to offer fiber, DTH and mobile services under one plan with single bill facility. The move is aimed at attracting high-paying customers and to drive average revenue per user (ARPU), a key performance metric for telecom firms.

“This is a postpaid offering. This will bring high value customers and will drive APRU. Customers are willing to pay for premium services…we could see some cost efficiencies in the long term but it is not the core driver rather ARPU is the main driver,” said Shashwat Sharma, chief marketing officer at Airtel.

Under the Airtel Black plans, the Sunil Mittal-led telco is promising to offer premium service with faster installation and priority customer service with relationship managers for billing resolution. Customers can also customise plans as per their requirement.

A customer can bundle 2 or more of Airtel services such as Fiber, DTH and mobile together to make the Airtel Black plan. Airtel is also offering zero-switching and installation costs coupled with free service visits for life.

In order to expand the addressable market, the telco is aggressively expanding its home broadband coverage and is talking to over-the-top (OTT) content partners to sweeten the market.

“We are in talks with OTT partnerships for seamless integration with Black plans. We will soon have something to share,” said Adarsh Nair, Airtel’s chief product officer of Airtel.

Sunil Taldar, CEO & Director of DTH Business said that Airtel is aiming to expand its broadband coverage to 1000 cities, up from 225 cities. ” We are ramping Airtel broadband services aggressively to expand Black offering. It will happen in a matter of months.

Airtel said that Black plans are being adopted by small and medium companies.

Airtel Black plans are priced between Rs 998 per month to Rs 2,099 per month.

The Rs 2,099 per month plan offers 3 mobile connections, 1 fiber connection and 1 DTH connection. The Rs 1,598 per month plan offers 2 mobile connections and 1 fiber connection.

The Rs 1,349 per month plan offers 3 mobile connections and 1 DTH connection. The Rs 998 per month plan provides 2 mobile connections and 1 DTH connection, the telco said.