DHAKA: India’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel Thursday said it will continue to cut discounted minutes and may raise tariffs to meet rising costs.

‘I think we will continue to see an opportunity to raise voice realisation through continued cut back of discounted minutes... We will deter to touch headline tariff but at some point there may be some opportunity to raise headline tariffs,’ Bharti Airtel managing director and CEO (India & South Asia) Gopal Vittal said.

The current levels of voice pricing are absolutely unsustainable with input costs going up, he added, reports NDTV.

‘With the rising cost of diesel, network cost, the cost of spectrum, the cost of fibre, the cost of actually rolling out networks, I think there is no question but to reduce discounted minutes,’ Vittal said.

Airtel has recently increased mobile services rates of both internet and voice calls under certain schemes. It has been consistently cutting down freebies for the last few quarters in order to increase voice realisation and improve profitability.  

‘It has been happening over the last four quarters. If I look at secular basis over the next couple of years, there is no other option but for voice realisation to go up,’ Vittal said.

He added that due to the efforts of the company, the voice realisation per minute has improved to 37.07 paisa as compared to 35 paisa four quarters ago.

The company on Tuesday reported an 89 percent rise in the fourth quarter net profit at Rs. 962 crore on account of higher revenue from data business and rise in mobile services rates.

BDST: 1726 HRS, APR 30, 2014