Airtel eyes to double VAS share in Gujarat

With the launch of its innovative value added services (VAS) like Airtel Mobile Bazaar and Airtel Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Application in Gujarat, country's largest private telecom operator Airtel is aiming to double the share of VAS to its total revenue in the state.

According to Shivan Bhargava, chief operating officer, Airtel - Gujarat Circle, currently VAS forms 10 per cent of the total revenue in the state. "In next two years, we are expecting VAS to contribute 20 per cent of our revenue in Gujarat.  Even as an service provider, Airtel is growing by 15 per cent steadily in Gujarat as far as VAS is concerned," said Bhargava.

Adding further, Bhargava said, "Gujarat has been one of the high users of VAS and our customers have shown an increased comfort with the usage of applications other than voice on their mobile phones. Even on the recently launched Application Central platform, Gujarat has contributed significantly with more than 3 lakh downloads out of 2.5 million plus downloads just within 30 days of the launch.

Our customers based in Surat have led in the number of downloads with Social networking (Qeep, Snaptu, Wauwee, Rocke talk) and Utility Applications ranking highest on the popularity charts. Games like TibiaME and Kraze Free are most popular in Gujarat." To cater to high volume users, Airtel has special unlimited plans both on GPRS and SMS that effectively service the needs of such high bandwidth customers.