Aircel, the fifth largest operator by subscribers, has announced the launch of its GSM mobile services in Haryana. With a subscriber base of over 40 million as of May end, Aircel is now present in 20 circles.
Aircel has introduced an inbuilt tariff on STD calls wherein the first minute of the call will cost 75 paise and from then on the call will be charged at 50 paise per minute. The operator is also offering a package at Rs 5, using which the customer can avail talktime of Rs 4.50 at 50 paise per minute on the same day. To address the migrants and travelers segment, it is offering discounts on Roaming to neighbouring states such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
Gurdeep Singh, chief operating officer, Aircel, said in a statement, “We will be introducing products and services uniquely tailored to meet the special needs of our Haryana consumers. The Haryana launch augments the next phase of our pan India rollout. With mobile penetration of 57 per cent in Haryana, there are a lot of segment based needs that an operator can fulfill for better consumer satisfaction.”
Aircel is present in 20 telecom circles – Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh East, Uttar Pradesh West, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Kolkata, Assam, Bihar, Chennai, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, North-East, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, MP and Chhattisgarh, and Haryana.
Aircel reaches Haryana with inbuilt STD tariff plan
CanvasM to launch an application store in the next quarter
CanvasM, a Noida-based mobile value added services (VAS) company which is a joint venture between Tech Mahindra and Motorola, said it is going to launch an application store in the next quarter (July to September).
Speaking to Telecom Yatra, Jagdish Mitra, chief executive officer, CanvasM, said, “The application store will be a white label service and will work across operators and handsets. For the App store, we will be functioning like a mall. A person who wants to market his product can use the mall. We will not be involved in the marketing and branding of the apps store. We will provide the platform but we are not going to take the responsibility to sell the product to the end customer.” A white label service is one that is produced by one company and marketed by others under their branding.
At present, CanvasM is focusing on two segments. It offers enterprise solutions such as managed services and system integration, as well as customer related services such as mobile commerce and mobile advertisement. It is eyeing a growth of 50 to 60 per cent by the end of this year.
Speaking about the app store, Mitra said, “We have been looking at the app store business from the last one and a half years. We are the pioneers in this and we are thinking of launching a bundle of about 30,000 applications. We have some aggregators who will provide apps to us. We are also looking at this platform as a place where anyone can come and build an application. We have the reach to take these apps into the market, through Tech Mahindra, Mahindra or our own channel.”
The company has also tied up with some colleges and universities to generate ideas for applications.
CanvasM currently provides VAS solutions to enterprises in India and Asia Pacific, the United States of America, Europe, Singapore and the Middle East. According to Mitra, the company generates around 50 per cent of its revenue from India, Asia Pacific and the Middle East; while the rest comes from USA and Europe.
MTS to introduce smartphones for customers in July
MTS, the CDMA mobile services brand of Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), plans to introduce smartphones for its customers next month. The smartphone line-up will include BlackBerry, Windows and Android devices. The company plans to keep prices competitive. Leonid Musatov, chief marketing officer, SSTL, told Telecom Yatra at the sidelines of a press conference held here, “We plan to make smartphones available for our customers beginning this July. We’ll be extremely aggressive on the price front, we don’t intend to make vendor margin.”
He added, “We want to offer innovative offerings like dual technology smartphones. I also believe that Android is the most convenient way for a consumer to use mobile internet.” MTS will announce a few partnerships in the coming two to three months, which will focus on educating people on the use of mobile internet.
The CDMA operator also expects that the Russian government’s investment of $677 million (over Rs 3,000 crore) in the mobile operator will close soon. “The Russian parliament Duma has approved the proposal and four or five ministries are currently involved in finalising things. We expect to close it by the end of quarter three”, Vsevolod Rozanov, president and chief executive officer, SSTL, told reporters.
MTS currently provides CDMA mobile services in 12 of India’s 22 telecom service areas and has announced that it has crossed the five million subscribers mark in the country. To celebrate the occasion, the company also announced Unlimited MBlazer and Win Win packs. While the former allows users to access unlimited data for 30 days at a price of Rs 999, the Win Win pack offers a mix of various packages from which the users can choose the features they want.
Rozanov revealed that last month the operator successfully added nearly half a million subscribers and expects to double its subscriber base within few months.
Talking about the company’s future plans, Musatov said, “We expect to break even in 2013. The business is going in the right direction. Our primary aim is to become the primary SIM of our subscriber base. We’ll also be introducing some innovative value added services in a few months.”
Idea enables users to keep reserve talktime
Idea Cellular has launched a new initiative that will enable its subscribers in Andhra Pradesh to keep balance in reserve on their prepaid account.
This feature will allow subscribers to use their reserve amount later when they need it. For example, when a user has run out of balance and cannot reach a retailer immediately, but urgently needs to make a phone call, he can activate the reserve talktime.
To avail this service, subscribers can recharge with Rs 33 and get talktime of Rs 25 credited into their reserve account. On every recharge with this voucher, subscribers will also be able to make five minutes worth of local Idea to Idea calls free from 10 pm to 7 aam, for up to three days from the day of recharge.
Subbaraman Iyer, chief operating officer, Andhra Pradesh, Idea Cellular, said in an official statement, “The new concept of reserve talktime is set to change the way prepaid mobile services are perceived, bringing greater convenience and flexibility for the consumers. The 6.5 million Idea subscribers in Andhra Pradesh will be the first ones in the country to experience and benefit from this unique concept.”
Airtel app store sees 13 million downloads in four months
Bharti Airtel has announced that its applications store Airtel App Central, has seen 13 million application downloads within four months of its launch. Airtel says that on average its mobile subscribers downloaded at the rate of 1.2 applications per second over four months.
Bharti Airtel had forayed into the -growing mobile applications market by launching Airtel App Central in February. It had claimed more than 2.5 million application downloads within 30 days of launching the store.
While in March the company’s app store had over 1,500 apps available for download across over 550 devices, today the operator offers more than 71,000 apps for download across 780 mobile devices.
Atul Bindal, president, mobile services, Bharti Airtel, said in a statement, “Airtel customers have identified our easy single click purchase mechanism as the most popular aspect of the store. With over 32 per cent of downloads paid for, App Central is also emerging as the preferred destination for existing and upcoming developers in India and the world over.”
Airtel’s mobile customers can choose from apps in 25 categories, including social networking, games, business, news, sports, health, education and travel. Customers can visit Airtel Live on their mobile phones to browse App Central, or SMS a toll free number to receive App Central’s URL.
Loop Mobile partners with SMS GupShup for Reply All SMS service
Loop Mobile has announced a tie up with SMS GupShup for a Reply All SMS service. This social networking tool will allow Loop Mobile subscribers to simultaneously communicate with multiple people through SMS.
Loop Mobile users can create a group of seven people including themselves. The group is then assigned a shortcode by SMS GupShup. Members of the group can send messages to this shortcode to communicate with each other. The messages reach all members of the group at the same time and if anyone replies, the reply too reaches all members of the group. Loop Mobile subscribers can also invite friends who use other operators’ services to the group.
The service is applicable to both national and local SMSs. While Loop users are billed at 50 paise per SMS, people not on Loop but who are part of a group, will be charged as per their existing tariff plans, explained a Loop Mobile spokesperson.
As a promotional offer the service will be offered free of cost to Loop Mobile users till June 30.
The service works on every handset and across operators without the need for software download or data connectivity.
SMS GupShup was launched in April 2007 and claims to have over 30 million users interacting in over 3 million SMS communities. The service is provided free of cost to its users and its revenue model is advertising based.
Vuclip to launch TV streaming service
Vuclip, a mobile video search portal, is planning to launch its Live TV service in India within the next three months. Nickhil Jakatdar, co founder and chief executive officer, Vuclip, said, “We already offer Live TV services in US but it is an event based model. In India, however, it will be a full fledged service.” Talking about content partners, he stated that Vuclip will start serving content of its existing partners such as Times Group and Network 18.
The company also plans to launch an SMS alert service wherein a subscriber can opt to receive SMSs with links to the video they are looking for. This is meant to save users the bother of logging on to the site and searching for the video. The service, clarifies Jakatdar, will not be available during the ongoing Asia Cup 2010 cricket series and will be launched in July.
Vuclip has recently partnered with vRock to power the latter’s mobile video search for Asia Cup 2010. The company claims that it will be able to publish videos of the latest happenings in Asia Cup 2010 within 15 minutes of the actual event taking place, and is hopeful of bringing the duration down to five minutes.
The video search portal has placed its link on the Airtel, Vodafone, Tata Indicom, Tata Docomo, Reliance Communications, Aircel and Idea Cellular websites. It plans to sign on Loop Mobile soon.
Vuclip is a non downloadable client and can been accessed only via a WAP site. It currently has two million active users world wide. The company is headquartered in Milpitas, California, with offices in Los Angeles, Beijing, New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune.
Tala Teleservices streams Asia Cup to mobiles
Tata Teleservices has entered an exclusive partnership with Apalya to offer Asia Cup matches live to Tata Photon plus and Tata Docomo subscribers.
The ongoing Asia Cup 2010 is scheduled to end on June 24, and has cricket teams from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh participating in it.
Tata Photon Plus customers can access Asia Cup 2010 on their mobiles and laptops via Tata Photon TV. While laptop viewing users will be charged Rs five per match and Rs 25 for the full tournament, the Tata Photon TV service is available fee of cost on mobile phones. Tata Photon TV is available on limited handsets, namely LG 510, Samsung Corby, Samsung M519-Metro and BlackBerry 9630.
Tata Docomo users can access exclusive videos of Asia Cup 2010 using GPRS. For viewing videos, they can either opt for a live streaming service or download MiMobiTV. Subscribers need to pay browsing charges of one paisa per KB for home networks and ten paise per 10 KB while while on other networks. Users can also get Asia Cup 2010 updates on SMS, which is available in three packs, namely Daily pack at Rs five for every match, Weekly pack at Rs ten for seven days and Monthly pack at Rs 30 for 30 days. Users can also get daily match updates via voice at Rs five per match day.
The company has also partnered with Vuclip to offer Asia Cup 2010 video download. Its video portfolio includes match highlights, wickets, fours and sixes. Data charges as per the tariff plan of the user will apply.
Tata Indicom users also have access to a Football Fever application, which is downloadable from Tata Zone. The application offers football world cup updates, reviews and ratings on mobile phones. Subscribers will be charged Rs ten for a week to download the application while there are no charges for surfing the application. Users can also find wallpapers and the football anthem. The cost of various downloads range between Rs 10 to Rs 15.
30% youth on social networking use mobile internet: survey
A social media survey conducted by Indiabiz News and Research Services (INRS), reveals that around 30 per cent of India’s young social networkers access networking sites from their mobile phones. The survey covered a base of 350 respondents in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore. Facebook claimed the top spot in terms of usage. The survey also revealed that the popularity of micro-blogging sites, such as Twitter, is limited to celebrities while LinkedIn has a greater following. The votes in favour of LinkedIn (45.8 per cent) were much above those of both YouTube (36.5 per cent) and Twitter (29.6 per cent).
About 63 per cent of those who took the poll have never engaged with communities, groups and fan pages on networking sites. Among these, only 11 per cent join a networking site on the recommendation of their friends. About 37 per cent of respondents belong to the 26 to 30 years age group and almost 35 per cent of them were professionals with mid-level jobs.
Even as more and more people are joining the online networking space for professional reasons, the most dominant reason to join the club is to stay in touch with friends. Almost 90 per cent of users join such sites to follow or stay in touch with their friends, and nearly 80 per cent follow their friends for their pictures.
More than tweeting, blogging is becoming a popular choice among thinkers and debaters. A large number of users (45 per cent) are reading or writing blogs to express ideas and opinions. The top five categories of blogs are entertainment, current affairs, personal, fashion and technology, in ascending order.
Indiabiz News & Research Services (INRS) is a content service company that runs a news website. The company is headquartered in New Delhi.
Infibeam forays into mobile handset business
The latest player to enter the Indian mobile handset market is the e-commerce retail company Infibeam. The company has announced that it has entered a design and manufacturing alliance with a global mobile phone manufacturer. However, the manufacturer’s name has not been revealed yet.
Vishal Mehta, chief executive officer and founder, Infibeam.com, said in the company statement, “The company targets to scale up its handset sales by introducing models with applications that are well suited to offer these services to Indian consumers at competitive pricing.”
The company has already launched three models I666, I5000 and I500. I666 comes with a QWERTY keyboard and G-Sensor, while I5000 is a flip phone. The third phone, I500, is a touchscreen device.
Infibeam is looking to tie-up with consumer brands in India and to provide content services and applications.
Infibeam operates an e-commerce retail portal www.infibeam.com, along with www.picsquare.com. The company also provides e-commerce and marketing services to brands, retailers and media companies internationally and in India.