Mobile tariffs in India to decline by 25 percent
By siliconindia   |   Monday, 04 May 2009, 23:19 IST   |    2 Comments
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Mobile tariffs in India to decline by 25 percent
Mumbai: The mobile tariff in India is the lowest in the world and it is expected to further decline by 20-25 percent during the year. New entrants in the telecom sector and the rapid expansion of the existing telecom players would trigger the decline in the tariff. "Whenever new entrants commence operations in the country, there is a high chance of reduction in tariffs as they come in with innovative strategies and prices, including freebies. Apart from tariffs, the price reduction would also be extended to handsets," European handset major Meridian India CEO Rajiv Khanna told Business Standard. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) estimates that the country needs around 300,000 towers by 2010 to support the massive 10 million monthly subscriber additions. "The industry will have to now think of ways and means of handling the increasing capacity proportionately, but more resource effectively," GTL Chief Operating Officer and Director Charudatta Naik said. The recent slash in termination charges from 30 to 20 paise for domestic calls, which the operators have begun passing on to the subscribers, is also pulling tariffs down. Termination charges are the charges paid by one operator to another for terminating the calls on the latter's network. Some companies, however, do not consider the lowering of tariffs to be an apt option for competiting in the telecom space. "Indian companies are rolling our predatory prices without conducting proper studies, unlike in the U.S. or developed countries. Price reductions coming in from desperate companies are anti-competition and these are not based on economic sense, and in the long run this would be anti-consumer and anti-industry," said Idea Cellular Managing Director Sanjeev Aga.

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