Rpg'S Prepaid Cell Service In Chennai

RPG Cellular Services Ltd yesterday launched the Wings Prepaid Service in Chennai. This is Chennai's first prepaid service with over the air recharge facility. RPG Cellular's Wings service allows cellular phone users to buy prepaid air time under three tariff plans priced between Rs 1,555 and Rs 4,915 for a starter pack. The prepaid service can be recharged by buying coupons, which will be made available in retail outlets in the city. These coupons can then be used to recharge over the air, Dilip R Mehta, president of RPG Cellular Services said.

The company will also deliver to home these recharge coupons. RPG Cellular plans to bundle the Wings starter packs with handsets from next week.

 

The company was to have launched its prepaid service about six ago. The delay was accepted as RPG Cellular was keen on launching the service with the over the air recharge facility.

An investment of Rs 3 crore has been made in launching the Wings service. "Wings is part of our plan to aggressively expand the Chennai cellular market," Mehta said. "We are confident that the prepaid service will expand the market without cannibalising our postpaid sales," he added.

Chennai has a subscriber base of about 50,000 users, shared almost equally between the two service providers Skycell and RPG Cellular. Mehta expects the base to increase to about one lakh over the next few years. Internationally, prepaid air time has become popular with cellular phone users. RPG Cellular expects about 50 per cent of its revenues to come from the prepaid service. "On an average we expect monthly revenues of about Rs 1,200 per user from both categories of users," Mehta said.

"We have been making profits during the last few months, but if we start paying licence fee of Rs 500 per user, as stipulated by the government, our profits will no longer be there," he said.

RPG Cellular has been promoted by the RPG group in association with Airtouch international, USA, Vodaphone Plc, UK, and Japanese trading majors Itochu Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation. The RPG group holds the majority stake in the venture.