Virgin Mobile launched its GSM services in India with Tata Teleservices

On January 21, 2009, Virgin Mobile announced its GSM service in partnership with Tata Teleservices Ltd. The service will initially cover five cities of Southern India including- Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Pan-India GSM will be completed within the current fiscal year.

Voice calls on Virgin GSM network will cost Rs. 0.20 per minute for local and STD calls made to Virgin Mobile numbers and Rs.0.40 per minute for local calls and Rs.0.50 per minute for STD calls made to other networks.

At the launch event, M. A. Madhusudan, CEO, Virgin Mobile India, said that though subscriber base of mobile phone operators in India is going up, the profit bottomline is under huge pressure. However, the GSM is a big market with lots of opportunities. Every month, GSM operators are adding up around 15 million subscribers half of whom are young people. Virgin Mobile is now looking forward to become the preferred brand for making outgoing calls. Dubbed as “Doston Ka Network” (Network of friends) Virgin Mobile aims to provide services to help its customers get the most out of its friend circle.

Anil Sardana, Managing Director, Tata Teleservices told reporters that their GSM foray with DoCoMo had been well received by subscribers. This prompted the company to launch a new GSM service with Virgin. Tata also invested in additional networks to further reinforce its GSM network. Here are some of the services offered by Virgin Mobile’s GSM network:

vMingle: This service will offer users to stay connected with various social networking sites 24/7. It will be an integrated social networking service and under this service, users will keep in touch with friends at all social networking websites with one single login.

vGenie Service: This service offers birthday reminders, wake-up calls, and social networking updates.

vBelong Service: offers users to make and design their own WAP sites.

Sir Richard Branson, Chairman and Founder, Virgin Group, said that India is the only market where Virgin is present in both GSM and CDMA segment. It is a good decision on Virgin’s part because GSM is more popular in India than CDMA. According to TRAI, at the end of September 2009, there were 371 million subscribers under GSM compared to 101 million subscribers under CDMA networks.

Virgin mobile company, is a subsidy of billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin communications. The company entered the Indian market in March 2008. A youth oriented mobile company, Virgin targeted young people between 14 and 25 years. It offers a wide range of services including music, news, Bollywood movies, sports etc. Virgin Mobile already gained popularity for its Value Added Services like “get talktime for incoming calls.” The company’s “Think Hatke” ad campaign also became very popular.

To promote its new network, Virgin Mobile hired famous Bollywood couple, Shahid Kapoor and Genelia D’souza. Last week, Shahid Kapoor and Genelia starrer Chance Pe Dance was released in theatres and the movie became immensely popular. Shahid Kapoor and Genelia looked very beautiful on the screen. Prasad Narasimhan, Chief Marketing Officer, told reporters that the couple beautifully represents their brand. They not only show what Virgin stands for but also what Virgin wants to become in the GSM segment- becoming the ultimate network for friends. Shahid Kapoor is one of the most sought after Bollywood actors today. Genelia D’Souza also has a “next-door fun loving girl” image. The two are a great fit for Virgin brand.

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DoCoMo is Aggressively Pushing in Indian Market

If you watch Indian TV channels then you should have perhaps noticed that there is a number of new advertisements from DoCoMo. DoCoMo is in Indian market in partnership with Tata and Tata Docomo has managed to become a major driving force in the market. It has seen some success in getting new subscribers by pay per second package. As a result, the other large mobile phone operators like Airtel and Reliance Communications are facing tough competition as a result of the price war. As a result, Reliance Communications has suffered loss and Airtel has seen its profit to decrease significantly in the last quarter.

Because of the intense competition, I think that the consumers will ge the benefit. The operators would be forced to give better service at cheaper price and in the end the best will survive.

Bharti Airtel reaches 90 million subscriber base

Bharti Airtel, one of the Indian telecom giants, achieved another major milestone by doubling the gap with its nearest competitors. With its 90 million subscriber, the current difference between Bharti Airtel and its nearest competitor rose to 25 million which was previously 10 million-12 million. The company also announced to start its own 3G services within the next six months. In addition, its DTH business that started from October, 2008 is doing quite well. Currently, Bharti Airtel is providing DTH services in 92 cities in the country.

In an interview, Sunil Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Group, said that his company is doing well even in the middle of hard economic times and from now on, number of subscribers would not determine the top position of a mobile operator in India but the revenue share. Mr. Mittal said that his company now has 30% share of the total revenue generated by mobile operators in India.

Mr. Mittal said that they are now waiting for the allotment of the spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) through auction. Unfortunately, no specific date has been set for the auction due to various unresolved issues including reserve price of each block and number of blocks to be auctioned. Currently, the DoT recommended reserve price for each block is Rs. 2,020 for pan Indian operation. Finance Ministry suggested to double the price. Regarding the reserve price, Mr. Mittal said that they would go for pan-India operation if the reserve price is reasonable. The company’s finance is in good shape and it would be able to get investors to finance its 3G project. However, Bharti Airtel has no plans to raise funds in near future. Mr. Mittal also denied the foreign acquisition rumor at the moment. Bharti would not get into any developed countries as there are high risk factors.

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(This entry was first published in February 2009. Because of a technical problem, the entry had to be deleted and I am reposting again now.)