Indian telcos announce rare price hike to turn around sagging business fortunes

Two of the industry's top three private players, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, accumulated losses totalling almost 740 billion rupees (S$14.1 billion) in the quarter ending September this year. PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW DELHI - Internet users in India have had a dream run paying the world's cheapest data prices - a gigabyte here is available for less than 15 Singapore cents. Such affordable data, powered by cheap smartphones, has fuelled India's Internet addiction and helped quadruple the number of active users from just 111 million in June 2012 to 451 million in March this year.

But it has also pushed telecoms operators in the world's second-biggest telecommunications market close to burnout as they struggle to keep prices low despite mounting debts. Two of the industry's top three private players, Vodafone Idea and Singtel associate Bharti Airtel, accumulated losses totalling almost 740 billion rupees (S$14.1 billion) in the quarter ending September this year.

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