Overview
- Airtel has reintroduced the ₹299 prepaid pack on its app and website offering 1 GB per day for 28 days, a trimmed version of the earlier 1.5 GB/day plan that was withdrawn in August.
- The tariff rollback follows a sharp slowdown in net customer additions and higher churn in the September quarter, when net adds fell substantially and churn rose to 2.9%.
- Analysts including Citi Research and JM Financial linked the subscriber losses to Airtel’s August plan rationalisation that removed several entry-level packs and pushed some price‑sensitive users to rivals.
- Company leaders say the repricing is tactical and that Airtel will continue to prioritise ARPU growth by driving postpaid upgrades, top-ups and other higher‑value services while expanding data‑centre and cloud capacity.
- For users this means shorter‑term relief on entry pricing but reduced daily data versus the old pack, and for the market it signals that aggressive premium moves can prompt quick reversals when subscriber retention slips.