Reliance Communications (RCom) India’s third largest telecom operator has hiked its call rates by 25% which will come to effect from this Friday. RCom revised its base call rates from earlier 1.2 paise per second to 1.5 paise per second.
According to an official statement from Reliance Communications, the hike in call rates are due to lower competition and input costs rising in the telecom sector. RCom hiked call rates will initially affect new customers and will be extended to its existing users when the validity of their current tariff plans expires. This hike currently been implemented in four telecom circle which include Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and to be rolled out across the rest of the county within a month.
Official statement from company says its move comes in the wake of its new strategy to track average margin per user rather than average monthly revenue per user.
Its one of the biggest step taken by Reliance Communication within the last two months, as previous months RCom disconnected around 21 million inactive mobile subscribers who have not used the service for more than two months. This caused the company to lose 13.25% of their mobile subscribers (TRAI report). RCom total mobile subscribers fell to 134.1 million mobile subscribers at the end of July, from 154.6 million in the previous month.
Will the hike by Reliance open up opportunities for other telecom operators to hike call and SMS rates? Do comment your views.