Tata Tele plans to double customer base to 10 lakh in AP

Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) is planning to double its customer base in Andhra Pradesh from the current five lakh to 10 lakh by the end of the current fiscal.

Speaking to media persons, Prabhat Pani, chief operating officer (AP and Karnataka circle) of Tata Teleservices, reiterated that Tata Tele would be investing Rs 446 crore on its operations in the state.

It would expand to 166 towns by December-end from the current 50 towns. It will also expand the total number of cell sites to around 400 from the existing 212 cell sites across the state.

TTSL offers mobile, fixed wireless phones and wireline services under the Tata Indicom brand in eight circles in the country including Andhra Pradesh.

Stating that the company had achieved operational break even, Pani said that the Tata Indicom brand would make significant growth in the state with the soon-to-be-launched pre-paid services in its mobile segment.

Of the total customer base of five lakh, 1.9 lakh customers use fixed wireless phones (FWP), while 1.3 lakh wireless fixed phones with the mobile phone services accounting for the remaining.

"At present, Tata Tele has a dominant presence in coastal Andhra. Expansion in Telangana and Rayalaseema regions, launch of new value-added offerings and pre-paid service would propel the company's growth in the future," Pani said.

In this regard, he pointed out that the company added one lakh new customers in just five months from February to July this year, as compared to the company's achievement of its first one lakh customer base in 2001 which had taken a span of 25 months.

On the competition between GSM and CDMA technologies, Pani said that the latter not only had faster transfer rate of data, images and video but also come at cheaper costs. This advantage was attracting more customers under its fold, he said.

Tata Tele launched a new FWP instrument on the occasion. Tata Tele is also offering Internet facility on FWPs across the state. The company will also soon launch a new service for corporates called Push-to-Talk (PTT), Pani said.