Vodafone Idea Ltd has raised prices of two Red Family postpaid plans — ₹598 and ₹749 — by ₹50 with immediate effect, implementing the first round of the much-anticipated tariff hike.

According to Vodafone Idea’s website, the ₹598 plan is now available for ₹649, while the ₹749 plan is now priced at ₹799. It is worth noting that these two plans are a part of Vodafone Idea’s RED Family plans, not individual plans.

The cash-strapped telco’s chief executive, Ravinder Takkar, in October had said the company will not shy away from raising prices and will set a precedent in the industry. The management of rival Bharti Airtel Ltd has also spoken of a tariff hike but not given a timeline yet.

Vi’s plan of ₹598, which offers two connections with 80 GB data, will now cost ₹649, while the ₹749 plan will be offered at ₹799 per month. Both the plans will continue to offer unlimited local, STD, national roaming voice calls to any network within India.

In the ₹649 plan, primary users will get 50GB data and secondary users will have 30GB, while data in the ₹799 plan, which offers three connections, will be split as 60GB for primary connections and 30GB each for secondary users. Both the plans come with rollover of 200 GB data.

Other benefits of the family postpaid plans include Amazon Prime Video and Zee5 subscription for primary connections, and Vi Movies & TV subscription for both primary and secondary customers.

Postpaid users account for 8% of Vodafone Idea’s total subscribers, and the latest price hike in this segment is about 8% higher than that of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, while it is similar to Bharti Airtel Ltd, said analysts at Motilal Oswal Financial Services in a note.

“This is the first leg of the price hike which is low hanging given that postpaid has a sticky subscriber base and should likely see limited churn even if peers don’t raise ARPUs (average revenue per user). This was evident in Reliance Jio’s postpaid price cut in September 2020 which saw the limited impact,” said Motilal Oswal.

Vodafone Idea lost 1.2 million subscribers in August, which took the telco’s market share to 26.15%, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

Factors such as higher tariffs and deteriorating network quality will add to Vodafone Idea’s subscriber loss. Mint had on 24 November reported, citing analysts, that the Birla group company will need others to join in the tariff hike or risks losing more customers.

Mean-while, On Tuesday, India reported a significant drop in the number of fresh Covid-19 cases. Its case tally now stands at 9,499,710. The country’s death toll has mounted to 138,159. With 1,828,826 cases, Maharashtra has the highest number of coronavirus cases, followed by Karnataka 886,227, Andhra Pradesh 868,000, Tamil Nadu 783,319 and Kerala 608,357. Delhi recorded 4,006 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the infection tally in the national capital to over 574,000, while 86 more fatalities pushed the toll from the disease to 9,260.

.In the wake of reporting of two adverse events that occurred with the volunteers during the vaccine trial, the fear and hesitation among the people to take the vaccine are growing. However, the union health ministry on Tuesday said that the government doesn’t intend to immunize each individual with the Covid-19 vaccine.
World coronavirus update: The global tally of coronavirus cases stands at 64,167,294. While 44,426,026 have recovered, 1,485,649 have died so far. The US, the worst-hit country, has 14,102,948 cases, and 276,914 have died from the disease there. It is followed by India, which has 9,499,710 cases, Brazil (6,388,526), Russia (2,322,056), France (2,230,571).