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Vodafone Essar achieves 100 million subscriber mark

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Vodafone Essar announced on Thursday that it has achieved a landmark 100 million subscribers in India. The pan India operator became the third to achieve this milestone in the country. The first operator in India to have achieved it is Bharti Airtel, which counted 100 million wireless subscribers in May 2009 and had a wireless subscriber base of more than 124 million at the end of February this year. Reliance Communications achieved the feat recently in March.
Vodafone had a subscriber base of more than 94 million at the end of January and more than 97 million at the end of February.

The achievement makes Vodafone the fifth operator in the world to serve over 100 million subscribers in a single country. The company also claims to have strengthened its position as India’s second largest operator in terms of revenue.

Marten Pieters, managing director and chief executive officer, Vodafone Essar, said in a press statement, “This is a significant achievement for us and reflects the trust customers have bestowed on the company.”
He also added that the company had invested over Rs 20,000 crore to expand customer service in India.
The company is present across all telecom circles and has surpassed the 100 million customer base. The press release stated that around 60 per cent of the operator’s subscriber additions now come from upcountry areas. It also has a distribution reach of about 1.2 million outlets.

Luminous enters handset market; to invest over Rs 550 crore by 2012

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Luminous, the New Delhi-based power and energy storage company, announced its entry into the mobile phone market and said it will be investing over $25 million (about Rs 110 crore) this financial year and about $100 million (Rs 440 crore) in 2011-2012.
The company plans to roll out its handsets in May under a separate entity named Wynn Telecom. It will initially launch seven models of dual handsets in the sub-Rs 5,000 price range and plans to be in the top three Indian handset brands within 12 months of launch.
Speaking to Telecom Yatra, Rakesh Malhotra, co founder and chairman, Wynn Telecom, said, “Our initial investment of $25 million will be for product, business and brand development. We are also setting up a manufacturing plant in Himachal Pradesh, which will require larger investment, thus we will be putting in $100 million in the next financial year.”
Wynn Telecom will offer a mix of utility phones, upgrade phones and youth phones. Utility phones will be a series of phones with heavy duty batteryand multiple language support. The upgrade series will have options such as cameras and video players. The youth series will consist of phones with features such as a keypad, pre loaded internet messenger, social networking applications, multimedia etc.
On manufacturing capacity, Malhotra said, “We have set up a base in Shenzhen, China and this entity is staffed with design and quality people, who are working with some (original equipment manufacturing) companies to manufacture handsets. We will continue with this till the third quarter of this year and after that manufacturing will begin in the Himachal Pradesh plant.”
The company has plans to build the brand very quickly and will undertake big campaigns. Malhotra highlighted that distribution and after sales service will be the biggest strengths of Wynncom and added, “There are brands that have been in the business for over two to three years and are still relying on third parties for after sales service, but we have set up a nationwide service network on our own as we believe that it is an important part of any business.”
Wynn Telecom is an extension of the SAR Group of Companies, which has Luminous as the flagship brand. Luminous Power Technologies delivers inverters, UPS, batteries and renewable energy products. It also has business interests in consumer appliances, information technology and networking solutions. Founded in 1988, Luminous markets its products in over 28 countries.

Tata Docomo introduces My Song service

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Tata Docomo, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices, has announced the launch of a new value added service by the name of My Song. The service, available for subscribers of both prepaid and postpaid services, is like a reverse ring tone facility.
With this service the subscriber gets to hear a tune that he sets for himself, instead of the caller tune set by others or the traditional ringing tone.
Gurinder Singh Sandhu, head marketing, Tata Docomo, said in a press statement, “When you make a call, you usually have to listen to someone’s caller tune which might not be your taste. This launch is a breakthrough that adds an entertainment value and relevance to the task of waiting for a call to be answered.”
Subscribers can select from different genres which include bollywood hits, regional, international, classical and funny tunes. They can set up to three different songs for calling different people. Users and will be charged 2 paise per second to access the service, while the subscription charges will be Rs 15 for a period of 30 days and an additional Rs 10 per song download for both post paid and pre paid subscribers.
Recently, a similar value added service was launched by Idea Cellular by the name of PreTones. This service allows subscribers to listen to content of their choice every time they make a voice call. The content portfolio that Idea offers includes live cricket, jokes, breaking news, astrology forecast, movie reviews and bollywood gossip.

Revenue per user continues to decline for telcos

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The Indian telecom industry’s average revenue per user (ARPU) has been falling steadily for both GSM and CDMA services, as per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) telecom performance report for the period October to December 2009.
TRAI figures reveal that GSM ARPU declined by Rs 20, from Rs 164 during the quarter July to September 2009 to Rs 144 in the quarter October to December in the same year. The report shows a constant decline in the ARPU every quarter in the past year. While at the end of December 2008 ARPU from GSM subscribers stood at Rs 220, it dropped by Rs 15 in the next quarter ended March 2009. The trend continued for the rest of the year with a decline of Rs 20 in the next quarter ended June 2009 and a further decline of Rs 21 in the quarter ended September 2009, which brought down the ARPU to Rs 164.
During the quarter ended December 2009, Karnataka emerged as the telecom circle with highest GSM ARPU at Rs 162 in Circle A while the Tamil Nadu circle (including Chennai) had lowest ARPU at Rs 136.

In Circle B Punjab took the top spot with an ARPU of Rs 167, while West Bengal circle had the lowest ARPU at Rs 108. North East circle out did the rest in Circle C with an ARPU of Rs 175. Bihar, generating an average of Rs 114 per user, registered the lowest ARPU in this circle.
As for the metros, Delhi had the highest ARPU of Rs 213, followed by Mumbai with an ARPU of Rs 189 and Kolkata with a low ARPU of Rs 127.
Likewise, ARPU from CDMA subscribers also showed a decline of 7 per cent, from Rs 89 in the quarter ended September 2009 to Rs 82 in the following quarter. CDMA ARPU stood at Rs 111 in the quarter ending in December 2008, dropping to Rs 99 by the quarter ended March 2009. It further dropped by Rs 7, then by Rs 3 and by a further Rs 7, to stand at Rs 82 during the quarter ended December 2009.
During October to December 2009, Andhra Pradesh had the highest CDMA ARPU in Circle A at Rs 99 while Maharashtra had the lowest at Rs 70. In Circle B, Kerala had maximum ARPU at Rs 79 while West Bengal had the lowest at Rs 51. In Circle C, Assam had the highest ARPU at Rs 204 while Orissa was at the bottom with ARPU of Rs 79.
The three metros – Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai – have ARPU in CDMA of Rs 80, Rs 107 and Rs 129, respectively.
Another interesting fact that surfaced in the report was that while GSM postpaid ARPU remained constant at Rs 530, GSM prepaid ARPU has declined by Rs 19, from Rs 143 in the quarter ended September 2009 to Rs 124 in the following quarter. Prepaid CDMA ARPU declined from Rs 65 to Rs 60 during these two quarters and postpaid ARPU declined by Rs 10 from Rs 412 to Rs 402 in the same period.
Circle A comprises Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Circle B includes Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West) and West Bengal. And Circle C comprises Bihar, Orissa, Assam, North East, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

Reliance Mobile launches GSM services in Goa

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Reliance Communications has rolled out its mobile GSM services in Goa. The 1.4 million people in Goa can choose between three Simply Reliance tariff plans. Call rates are uniform at 1 paisa per second and 50 paise per minute for local and STD/roaming calls, respectively. Based on usage patterns, Reliance Mobile customers can also opt for a calling tariff of Re 1 per 3 minute for local and STD/roaming calls.
“Having reached the milestone of 100 million customers in the country, we have our next target set – another 100 million in the next 1000 days. The launch of our GSM services in Goa is a step towards that goal. While we are launching GSM services in Goa, we will continue to come up with unique offerings for our CDMA subscribers to continue on the growth path,” said Akshay Kumar, regional head, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Goa, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, in a press statement.
The telecom giant also claims to be the first operator in Goa to offer at a price as low as 1 paisa per SMS in addition to a flat cost of Rs 11 per month.

Mobile web traffic from India on AdMob crosses 1 billion

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AdMob, a USA-based mobile advertising platform, said that mobile web traffic (measured in terms of requests sent by the search engine for ads that are relevant to the terms being searched) to the AdMob network crossed the one billion mark last month. Speaking to Telecom Yatra, Mahesh Narayanan, country manager, AdMob, said, “We have seen explosive mobile web traffic growth in India with a 100 per cent increase since the last 12 months. The mobile web traffic from India on AdMob’s platform stood at 1.2 billion in March.” India generates the second highest mobile Web traffic globally on the AdMob platform following the USA, claims the company.

Narayanan said that the surge in mobile web traffic has come from both metros and non metros across the country with Aircel subscribers contributing the most, mainly owing to the launch of unlimited data plans by the pan-India operator. He added that in the near future, tier-II cities will be the biggest contributors to mobile web traffic in India as mobile web will be the major point of internet access for subscribers in those cities.
As per the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report for February, maximum web traffic in India came from Nokia 5130 and Nokia 3110c and of the smart phones, Nokia N70 and N80 saw the highest number of mobile web users. Narayanan said, “About 64 per cent of traffic on AdMob comes from smart phones, with Nokia, Apple iPhone and iPod Touch being the top devices.” He is of the view that the number of iPhone users is low in India but that the traffic is high from the existing devices.
Commenting on future trends in mobile advertising, Narayanan said, “We see the younger demographic, mainly in the 15 to 30 age bracket, taking to mobile web. It will become an essential part of their lives and most marketers should start observing this trend.”
In November 2009, Google had expressed its plans to acquire AdMob for $750 million (close to Rs 3,330 crore) and the deal is currently awaiting approval from the Federal Trade Commission of the United States. Founded in 2006, the company has a strong presence in the mobile advertising space and offers display ads on the mobile internet as well as within mobile applications. It also offers analytics and research tools.

Vodafone launches MP3 music store

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Vodafone Essar has announced a music download service for its customers in Mumbai which will enable them to download full length songs charged at rupee one per song.

The service requires the customer to have a enabled handset. The music download service is available on Vodafone Live and is accessible by both postpaid and prepaid customers. Subscribers can also the name of a song to a toll free number to access the service.
Customers can subscribe to this service on a daily basis for Rs 5 which entitles them to download 5 songs in a day. Selected songs are automatically saved to a personal playlist titled My Songs on the Vodafone Live portal. The selected songs can be downloaded again at no additional charge.
The song gallery includes genres like bollywood, bhajans, international hits, ghazals etc. Subscribers can search the database using the search option.

Rural teledensity reached 23 per cent in Jan

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The country’s rural teledensity, including both wireless connections and fixed lines, was touching 23 per cent as on January 31, as per the Department of Telecommunications.
The government body also said that the total number of telephone subscribers in rural areas stood at 182.9 million (over 18 crore) at the end of January and that there were more than 460,000 rural BSNL connections at the end of February.
Among other target achievements in rural areas, DoT pointed out that by January, over 5.5 lakh villages (more than 95 per cent) had been covered by public telephones. Also, almost 80,000 gram panchayats had been covered with BSNL broadband by February.

New handsets garnered over 12 per cent of Indian market in 2009: IDC

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The number of new handset vendors in the Indian market grew to 28 in 2009 says a report published by market intelligence firm IDC. Together these handset manufacturers garnered close to 18 per cent of total sales for the first time during the October-December quarter. Overall, for the year 2009, new vendors registered a combined market share of over 12 per cent of total mobile handset sales in India.
The report also states that India’s mobile handset market remained flat for the past year, registering sales of 101.54 million (over 10 crore) units. Sales in 2009 have been mainly affected by lower sales in the first half of the year, from January to June 2009. However, in the fourth quarter of the same year, a 2.3 per cent year on year growth was registered for sales, at 28.36 million (close to 3 crore) units.
The top three mobile phone vendors by the end of the fourth quarter last year, according to IDC, were Nokia with the largest share of over 54 per cent in terms of units sold, Samsung with close to 10 per cent and LG with a little over 6 of the market.
Set up in 1987, IDC (India), a subsidiary of CyberMedia, is a source for market intelligence and consulting in the fields of IT, telecommunications and consumer technology. With its head office at Gurgaon, the company has branch offices in Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai.

LinkedIn launches mobile app for BlackBerry

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LinkedIn, the professional networking site, has launched its mobile application for BlackBerry smart phones globally, adding to its existing mobile offerings for iPhone and Palm Pre.
The application can be accessed at www.linkedin.com/blackberry and on BlackBerry World, and has integration with the BlackBerry, which allows professionals to use LinkedIn within their existing email, calendar and contacts apps.
Hari V Krishnan, country manager, LinkedIn India, told Telecom Yatra, “We had achieved 3.4 million registered LinkedIn users in India till November 2009 and last week we announced that we have crossed 5 million. We want to make LinkedIn a core part of a person’s day to day professional life and the mobile strategy is extremely important for us. We have built this application keeping in mind the BlackBerry platform and we have integrated LinkedIn in BlackBerry itself. We have also integrated LinkedIn to Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes.”

The LinkedIn app is free and available for download on theBlackBerry Tour, Curve and Bold models. It is available globally in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese languages.
Commenting on launching the app on other platforms, Krishnan said, “We are definitely going to partner with other platforms and this is not the end. There are two things to it – firstly, we need to keep in mind the platforms of choice for professionals because our focus is on professionals and secondly, we want to partner with handset manufacturers for building the app for their platforms and not just a generic (mobile internet) site as we believe that, in future, mobile will be all about integration of apps.”
The LinkedIn web site was launched in 2003 and claims to have more than 60 million members representing 200 countries and executives from every Fortune 500 company. The company’s corporate headquarters are in California, USA.

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