Airtel will give the feature phone user base a miss, says management

Airtel will stay out of the feature phone competition as it continues to focus on long term high-end customers, the management said during Q2 results. Analysts have taken a positive view on this move as it might be the only way for incumbents to increase ARPUs in the long run.

"We have chosen not to yet compete in the VoLTE feature phone space because we believe that there are customers already who are using our networks on feature phones. So our focus will be to actually get them to upgrade directly to smartphones,” said Gopal Vittal, CEO, Bharti Airtel while