The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Mobile segment blitzed by parade of schemes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 18, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Mobile segment blitzed by parade of schemes

M. Dinesh Varma

Companies cashing in on unprecedented growth in the prepaid sector

CHENNAI: The pre-paid mobile segment is telephony’s smoking battleground with all major players directing their heavy artillery into this sector, while the postpaid camp makes do with the occasional detonation.

Chennai’s telecom pie chart features BSNL, Aircel, Airtel, Reliance, Tata Indicom and Hutch — all of whom have been cashing in on the unprecedented growth in the prepaid sector.

According to estimates, the mobile subscriber base in the country is adding 6.5 million new users every month and around 90 per cent getting on board the prepaid wagon — growth terms that players feel is worth bleeding a bit for.

The strategies and sops adopted by mobile service providers have shaped into across attractive tariffs, add-on features, innovative schemes and extended validity besides loyalty retention incentives. In fact, few industries have grown as exponentially as the mobile telephony sector, and fewer still been forced to pass on the benefits of progress to the user-end as quickly.

The latest in the flurry of schemes was Tata Indicom’s nation-wide launch of the ‘Freedom Call’ that entitled unlimited free outgoing Tata-Tata calls at Rs.325 a month.

“The perception about the prepaid user has changed radically from the budget conscious community to that of consumers who make informed choices,’ said Ravinder Taneja, Circle Operations Officer for Tata Teleservices, Tamil Nadu. And, today it is this segment that is dictating the pace of growth but also driving operators to come out with better deals, he added.

Jukebox, the Reliance way

Reliance Communications has launched a Jukebox feature for its subscribers. ‘Mobile Radio’ being launched on an Interactive Voice Response portal will allow users to listen to their favourite songs any time and even while in transit, at a cost.

V. G. Somasekhar, Hub Head, Tamil Nadu and Kerala for Reliance, said the facility was conceived as a funnel for a plethora of music that is easily accessible format. Mobile Radio offers subscribers the options to listen to full songs of their choice, replay or skip songs and maintain a collection of favourites in a ‘My Album’ folder. The service is currently available in eight Indian languages. A ‘live studio’ feel is another distinctive aspect of the service.

Hutch, meanwhile, announced a tie up with Hungama.com as the exclusive content provider for the Rajinikanth starrer ‘Sivaji’. This will provide Hutch subscribers in Tamil Nadu access to services such as ringtones, wallpapers, picture messages, movie alerts, star alerts, trivia and much more from the movie. Select songs are also available as caller tunes.

Kumar Ramanathan, Chief Executive Officer, Chennai and Tamil Nadu, Hutch, said the fun contests would bring the superstar closer to his fans.

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