Airtel announces new postpaid plans, discontinues Rs 749 family plan; check details

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Thursday announced new postpaid plans for both corporate and retail users on July 22 and scrapped one of the most popular Rs 749 family postpaid plans for new customers. It will now offer a Rs 999 family postpaid plan with enhanced data benefits.

While the new corporate plans start at Rs 299 and go all the way up to Rs 1,599, the retails plans start at Rs 399 and go up to Rs 1,599.

Airtel said the plans were upgraded following key feedback from customers on the need for more data as the families’ use of digital platforms has increased manifold with the work-from-home and online education model in place.

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"As a response, Airtel has refreshed its Family postpaid plans to help its customers navigate the new normal. With its simplified postpaid proposition, customers can also easily bundle add-on connections with enhanced data benefits to their existing plans," the company said in a statement.

The rate of the add-on plan has also been increased from Rs 249 per month to Rs 299. Using this, the customers can add a connection to any Airtel postpaid plan at Rs 299/SIM and get 30 GB additional data as opposed to 10 GB earlier, and avail unlimited calling and Thanks benefits.

Speaking about the revised rates, Ajay Chitkara, director and CEO, Airtel Business said, "Over the past few years, Airtel has made massive investments in spectrum, infrastructure and latest technologies to build a 5G ready and secure network that can support the digital transformation journeys of our customers. Our new Postpaid plans offer a holistic connectivity solution along with industry-leading benefits to meet the productivity requirements of our customers in the post-pandemic world."

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Rs 299: 30 GB data, unlimited calling, Airtel Call Manager, Wynk Music App, Airtel Xstream App Premium, Shaw Academy (1 year).

Rs 349: 40 GB data, unlimited calling, Airtel Call Manager, Wynk Music App, Airtel Xstream App Premium, Shaw Academy (1 year).

Rs 399: 60 GB data, unlimited calling, Wynk Music App, Airtel Xstream App Premium, Shaw Academy (1 year), Tracemate, Google Workspace, Airtel Call Manager.

Rs 499: 100 GB data, unlimited calling, Tracemate, Google Workspace, Airtel Call Manager, Amazon Prime (1 year), Disney+ Hotstar VIP (1 year), VIP Service, Airtel Secure, Wynk Music App Premium, Airtel Xstream App Premium, Shaw Academy.

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Rs 1,599: 500 GB, unlimited calling, Tracemate, Google Workspace, Airtel Call Manager, Amazon Prime (1 year), Disney+ Hotstar VIP (1 year), VIP Service, Airtel Secure, Wynk Music App Premium, Airtel Xstream App Premium, Shaw Academy

All eligible Airtel Corporate customers will be migrated to the new plans, as applicable, from their subsequent billing cycles, the company said.

Rs 399: 1 connection, 40 GB data, unlimited calling, Wynk Music App, Airtel Xstream App, Shaw Academy (1 year), Free Hellotunes.

Rs 499: 1 connection, 75 GB data, unlimited calling, Amazon Prime (1 year), Disney+ Hotstar VIP (1 year), VIP Service, Airtel Secure, Wynk Music App Premium, Airtel Xstream App Premium, Shaw Academy.

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Rs 999: 3 (1+2 add-on) connections, 210 GB (150+30+30) data, Amazon Prime (1 year), Disney+ Hotstar VIP (1 year), VIP Service, Airtel Secure, Wynk Music App Premium, Airtel Xstream App Premium, Shaw Academy.

Rs 1,599: 2 (1+1 add-on) connections, unlimited data+ IR pack, Amazon Prime (1 year), Disney+ Hotstar VIP (1 year), VIP Service, Airtel Secure, Wynk Music App Premium, Airtel Xstream App Premium, Shaw Academy

Naveen Kulkarni of Axis Securities commented on the revision saying companies have to change their plans as they see utilisation across various product plans. So, this is not necessarily symbolic, he said.

"This is something which the company has done to improve its post-paid throughput. Post-paid is of course not a mass-market product unlike prepaid, post-paid is very niche and very focused product," Kulkarni said.

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Kulkarni said the change in postpaid plans is likely to improve Airtel's revenue and more importantly, it might help weed out inactive SIMs or SIMs that are just about active and not necessarily adding to any significant part of revenues.

"It is difficult to gauge I would say 1 percent kind of an improvement in the overall ARPU (average revenue per user) or 1.50 percent gain is the fair assessment, but it is still early to call on that number," he added.

Axis Securities CIO expects changes in the prepaid plans as well as it is the larger segment and revision there can have some more impact on Airtel’s overall numbers.