'SIM consolidation to normalise over 2 qtrs'

Vittal to take up some roles of Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal

- SUBHAYAN CHAKRABORTY

Bharti Airtel has seen limited amount of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) consolidation, and the trend is expected to stabilise over the next two quarters, Airtel Managing Director (MD) Gopal Vittal said on Tuesday in the post-results call with analysts.

Vittal also suggested another round of tariff hikes to raise the return on capital employed (ROCE) for the sector.

"As we've seen in the past, these trends normalise over two quarters and we've already seen that normalisation happen. Through October, we've already seen a trend of reversal with customer additions. We added 4.2 million smartphone customers in the quarter. Postpaid net additions remained steady at about 0.8 million," Vittal said.