Reliance swept the mobile telecom industry with its whole new world of Reliance Jio and its exciting unlimited free offers. The existing network providers had a tuff fight after the Happy New Year Offer by Reliance Jio. Airtel and all other cellular companies are facing a tough time altogether right now because of Reliance Jio.

After getting warned by regulator TRAI for excessive PoI congestion in eight circles, it was Airtel’s turn to return the warning back.

Agitated with the drop in Bharti Airtel’s profit, Bharti Airtel Global Chief Financial Officer Nilanjan Roy said: “In the short to medium term, free offers will impact all stakeholders including government levies and taxes, lender with debt exposure of over Rs 400,000 crore to the industry.” 

He alleged that “predatory pricing” by new operators has led to “unprecedented drop in the industry revenue table for the first time since its inception, jeopardizing the financial health of poster child — the Indian telecom industry”

He said, “To say that we are living in interesting time would be an understatement. In India, the continuation of free pricing by a new operator has led to the tsunami of traffic to the network impacting overall data revenue and voice realization.” Bharti Airtel’s revenue fell 3% to Rs 23,363.9 crore in the third quarter of FY2016-17. Mobile data revenue slowed to Rs 4,049 crore due to “free voice and data offering by a new operator”.

Profits registered by Airtel in the third quarter of FY 2016-17 is company’s lowest since the past four years.  “We are also seeing a slowdown in data indicator sequentially, more or less entirely, due to free offer by a new operator. for the first, it has led to an active decline in data customer base by 7.7 million and data usage down by 3.5% quarter and ARPU down 13%,” Roy said.

TRAI stated Idea Cellular and Vodafone have controlled their respective congestion levels well but said Airtel had failed to do so and might soon be facing action for the same. The frustration of falling profits was now doubled with this warning and Airtel subsequently lashed out at the government openly.