No Need To Worry About Rising Mobile Phone Bills Till May 2019, Here’s Why 

According to a report released by Bank of America Merill Lynch (BoFA ML) on Tuesday (20 November), subscribers do not need to worry about the increase in mobile tariffs, at least until May 2019, reports the New Indian Express.

The analyst report from the BoFA ML believes until Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio achieves a subscriber base of 400 million, they are not expected to increase tariff rates. "We believe Jio is aiming for No.1 position and unlikely to raise tariffs till it reaches 400 million subscribers,” states the report by Analysts Sachin Salgaonkar and Sukriti Bansal, while adding they do not expect any tariff hikes until the April-May 2019 general elections.

The report tells Jio is expecting their 50 million customers of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) customers to pay Rs 1,400 per month, at the same time, Bharti Airtel perceives the market size to be around 30 million, with consumers paying an average of Rs 500 per month.

Analysts feel the “network advantage and continued momentum in the 4G feature phone segment” will drive Reliance Jio to continue dominating the 4G segment for coming six months to a year.

Jio will also focus on increasing the number of mobile towers by 36,000 to 2.36 lakhs in the next six months and by 1.2 lakhs to reach 3.2 lakh towers over the next year and a half, says the report.

Vodafone Idea, which leads the market regarding the number of subscribers by 35 per cent said that integration of their business is on expected line. BoFA ML claims if the integration is not happening, it will be advantage Jio and Airtel, as they will market share.