Telcos Double Corporate SMS Rates For Overseas Entities

Anubhuti Pradhan, INN/Madhya Pradesh
Twitter-@anubhutipradhan @Infodeaofficial

Global firms running in India will be imposed $0.030 per short message service [SMS] from 16th July. It is twice the current rates and nearly 20 times costlier than the rate
telecom operatives charge national companies. As a result, some foreign firms may be
required to look for alternative means of communication, said, business officials.

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Foreign companies may choose alternatives like in-app notifications, emails and
WhatsApp Business Messaging, however, telcos will still earn greater revenue as mission-
critical messages like one-time passwords require sending an SMS, said the
administrators. The further rates will apply to Amazon, Google, Facebook and Uber, and
international banks including Standard Chartered, HSBC, Citibank and Deutsche Bank.
The tariff escalation will cause some decline in traffic. For example, most international
banks have premium customers who are frequent users of WhatsApp and email. More
than 40 billion SMS's are sent by domestic entities per month as correlated to one billion
by international companies, which is now expected to come down. India still has the most
economic rates in the world. They are paying significantly higher values, close to $0.060,
in other markets.
Google, Facebook, Uber, Amazon and Standard Chartered did not respond to ET’s
inquiries for a while. HSBC, Citibank and Deutsche Bank have declined to comment, and
Vodafone Idea, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel did not comment.