Newer entrants to the mobile telecom business may bide their time before increasing cellular services tariffs , industry insiders and analysts tracking the sector have said.

Operators such as Uninor, MTS and Videocon may prefer to go with existing tariffs, at least for a few months, in order to keep their current user base interested and also win new customers from entrenched operators.

“If the new operators increase tariffs, the only reason why subscribers had migrated to them will cease to exist. Already, some of them are falling behind the pack when it comes to net additions of new subscribers. Maintaining the current pricing will do them more good than harm,” Mr Kunal Bajaj, Managing Director of advisory firm Analysys Mason, told Business Line .

The new operators generally tend to attract pre-paid subscribers since they are sensitive to tariff changes. “We see incumbents changing their tariffs as a great opportunity for us. We now have a strong weapon in mobile number portability and hence are confident that maintaining tariffs will attract more subscribers to us,” an official with one of the newer cellular operators said.

>adith@thehindu.co.in