Heading into this conference call, apart from the India and Africa results, Airtel had two key developments that were up for debate: a price hike, reportedly, of 20%, and a restructuring of its organization in the key India and South Asia region. While there was hardly any discussion on the organizational structure, apart from a question on the appointment of heads for its B2C business and reporting B2C and B2B as separate segments, but the company was quizzed on the price hike and also a decline in contribution of non-voice revenues, and decline in revenue marketshare: Tariff Hike: Sanjay Kapoor, CEO ( India & South Asia) did not comment on the magnitude of the hike, saying that it is different across different circles. "Over the past few quarters we've seen hat the tariff decline has been slowing. Apart from 3 markets, we by-and-large corrected tariffs in every market. This is the right move for the sustainability of the market. Voice is under-penetrated in rural parts of the country." He later declined to comment on any regulatory backlash on tariff increase, or even if there has been any contact with the regulator on the issue. "The results of each (telecom) operator are an indication, and there have been cost increases in terms of additional (3g) spectrum. The tariff reduction over past 8-10 quarters cannot be made up by any price increase. The full impact of price hike will take a few quarters." On whether this will impact either usage or sign-ups,…
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