Aircel targets 10 mn customers in Assam, Rs 1,800 cr sales

The company currently has 46 lakh subscribers in the state

Telecom operator Aircel is looking to more than double its subscriber base in Assam to 10 million and clock a revenue of at least Rs 1,800 crore over the next five years.

"There is a huge potential in Assam. The tele density of the state is 54% compared to that of 77% for pan-India level. It is even higher in metros at about 140%. So the future of telecom sector is bright," Aircel Business Head (Assam Circle) Dibyajyoti Khaund told PTI.

The company currently has 46 lakh subscribers in Assam and aims to have 50 lakh people on-board by the end of this year, he added.

"In the next five years, we hope to double the number of subscribers and touch a base of 10 million users. When we entered the market exactly 10 years ago in September 2005, we were the fourth largest.

Today, we are the second largest operator in Assam and we hope to improve our position further," Khaund said.

Talking about the income, he said the company registered Rs 540 crore revenue in 2014.

"We are witnessing a steady growth in our sales revenue and it stands at Rs 60 crore every month at present. We are targetting to close the current year with a revenue of Rs 720 crore.

"Our income from each subscriber is around Rs 147 per month and it is going up every year. So, we hope to clock at least Rs 1,800 crore of annual revenue in the next five years from Assam," Khaund said.

He said the rise in data usage is more than the voice segment in the state.

"Currently, around 10-11% of our revenue comes from data segment. In the next three years, we see this figure increasing to 35-37% with rise in usage of smart phones," Khaund said.

Aircel is the only telecom operator in the state offering 4G technology at present. It offers the latest telecom signals in Guwahati, Jorhat, Sivasagar, Tezpur and Silchar in Assam.