Mumbai, June 06: Crisil has predicted a 40-50 per cent fall in Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) tariff and a 15 per cent decline in the telecom industry's average monthly revenue per user (ARPU), which will result in an "imminent shakeout" in the 12-player industry. "Increased competitive pressures, Trai's directives and operators changing tariff structures will result in GSM tariffs falling by 40-50 per cent from that a few months back," a Crisil release said here on Thursday.
The launch of WLL services by Reliance Infocomm, BSNL's low-priced GSM offering and implementation of calling party pays regime have also added to the changes in tariff structure, it said.
Commenting on the decline in ARPUs, the rating agency said, while increasing affordability of mobile phones would help spur the industry's growth, operators were working hard to moderate the impact of lower tariffs on revenues, it added.

"To mitigate the impact of declining tariffs on revenues, GSM operators are now focusing on protecting their ARPUs. In post-paid segment, this is done by preventing fixed monthly rentals from rising sharply and by increasing value-added services' fees," Crisil said.
In case of pre-paid consumers, operators were packaging a large number of minutes on the same card denominations. In spite of these attempts, ARPUs would decline by about 15 per cent to Rs 600 from the present Rs 700, it said. Bureau Report