Bangalore:  Mobile industry has a bad news in store at the end of this festive season for its customers. Mobile tariffs may increase further due to the rising operation cost in the coming year. Festive season is the perfect time to make or receive the highest number of inbound and outbound calls as well as greetings through text messages. A hike in call rates by 10 to 15 percent is expected after this holiday season is over, while cancellation of old tariff plan including voice, data schemes and pulse rates by the operators are on the board.

Over the last two years, Indian cell phone service providers have been enjoying lowest tariffs. But with a stiff competition amongst the players and increased tariff wars, the focus has shifted towards revenue growth and ARPUs (average revenue per user) to leverage business profits. Sigve Brekke head(Asia),Telenor(which operates the Uninor brand in India)says that mobile operators are doing more to  rationalize pricing in order to strike a balance with the revenue growth. Telco’s are looking for ways to cut cost in order to  ease the considerable pressure on revenues says Naveen Mishra , Lead Analyst of Telecom, IDC India, citing that it may however impact certain segments. As quoted by Times of India.

Telecom industry leader Prashant Singhal at Ernst & Young asserts that in the present scenerio of tarrif war, neither call volumes nor call values has increased . A tough time ahead for Telcos. As quoted by Times of India.

With marginal profits fluctuating for mobile operations, market situations go unpredictable and in the present situation, mobile operators are facing significant challenges in raising capital from financial and investment institutions. As the 3G connectivity being rolled out, mobile network providers are still striving for recovery for the loss which is yet to take time.

Baburajan K.Lead Analyst at telecomLead.com says ,”Return on investments from rural markets (where the new opportunities lie) are going to take a long time. Here operational costs are higher and ARPUs(average revenue per user)are lower”As per Times of India report. He also added that with the emerging players and disorganized tarrif offerings in the market, it’s difficult for telcos to go with the existing tarrif.

Commenting on the same, V Venkatesh of Chith Consulting, a strategic consulting firm specialized in Telecom, retail and consumer products said mobile industry is yet to take a consistent form  where profit should be equally measured and shared by providers as well as consumers. It is worth mentioning that the ARPU (average revenue per user) in India is Rs 130 and Rs 150 while in countries like China ,Singapore and Thailand it is reported to be 10 times higher.