The price has reached its lowest level, 3 pvt player mkt best possible scenario: CEO of Airtel Gopal Vittal

Bharti Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal said voice and data prices had reached their lowest point and industry was consolidating to become a market with three equally powerful private players .

"We (the industry) have bottomed out … the industry has suffered because prices are at an unsustainable level. The return on capital of the industry is also low. Pricing will therefore also have to adapt to a sustainable and financially dynamic industry, "Vittal told ET.

The boss of Bharti Airtel's operations in India and South Asia added that the industry structure would change to have three equally powerful players – Airtel, Vodafone India-Idea Cellular and Jio having shares almost equal.

Asked about the gains that he could draw from the delay in the Vodafone-Idea merger, Vittal said: "… we could get some share points.What's more important to us, it's a good thing. is a profitable and sustainable growth In this difficult period in the last 12-15 months, we have kept our RMS (income market share) rather well. "
In the current state of affairs, the Bharti Airtel dominates the market with approximately 33% market share, with Vodafone standing at around 21%, followed by Reliance Jio at 20%. Idea Cellular is in fourth place with 16.5%, according to regulatory data.

After spending billions to acquire 3G waves in 2010, the country's largest operator plans to phase out 3G services in the next 12 to 18 months, but it will take much longer to completely eliminate the 2G. "The 2G stop will arrive much later.In the rural areas of Bihar and UP, for 5 years you will have 2G, more than half of the business is on 2G," said Vittal.

On the consumer side, the carrier plans to complete the Pan-Indian deployment of Volte by September – after launching Volte services in 12-13 circles to date – after a delay of two quarters compared to its end-2017 fiscal calendar -18. Airtel is also experimenting with its Voice over Wi-Fi service, which it plans to introduce to its customers in the near future.

Yet another service that the company wants to launch is in-flight connectivity, and the phone company is now waiting for details of the government's licensing framework.