Mobile units plan more value added services

After a robust growth in 2008, telecommunication companies (telcos) in eastern India are planning more value-added-services (VAS), network enhancement and capacity building in 2009 to beat the recession.

The industry estimates subscriber addition of 9 million per month to continue, if not increase, for the next two years.

According to industry estimates, average revenue per user (ARPU) currently is around Rs 250.

In Bengal, recent entrants like Aircel currently has 2,800 cell sites in the state and intends to double that in 2009.

"We launched our services in Kolkata in May 2008. Currently we are available in all major towns of Bengal, and we intend to double the number of sites and cover all towns with 10,000 plus population during 2009," an Aircel spokesperson informed. Aircel is close to a million subscriber base in Bengal.

"With current teledensity at only 24 per cent in Bengal, we feel that there is enough opportunity to increase the customer base and our share of the revenue pie. Network enhancement is one of the focus areas, and our objective is also to double the network capacity during 2009," Aircel informed.

According to Sridhar Rao, CEO-East, Vodafone, "We are closing 2008 with over 6.6 million subscribers in West Bengal and a network that reaches out to more than 90 per cent of the population. There are a few pockets across the state where we need to enhance our signal strength. We will expand network further in 2009 and enhance quality of network and service."

At present, Vodafone has over 6,300 cell sites in West Bengal and Rao said, the company would add more.

According to Ajai Puri, CEO-West Bengal of Bharti Airtel, Kolkata currently has a penetration of 65 per cent while other metros have reached nearly 90 per cent. Hence there is still opportunity for Kolkata to catch up with other metro cities in India. Moreover, all these metro cities are still growing and attracting new customers.

Airtel, too, intends to invest in network enhancement and build on its VAS offerings.

"Currently even though Kolkata will continue to grow and maintain this growth pace, a lot of new customers are emerging from suburbs, small towns or rural markets of Bengal, Andaman and Sikkim," Puri added.

According to S K Chakravorty, chief general manager of Calcutta Telephones, "We will launch 3G services in 2009. We expect our subscriber base to double after that. Also 3G will enable us to introduce a lot more value-added-services as consumers are increasingly looking outside of voice-based services."

Tata Indicom, on its part, will focus on customer acquisition in 2009, especially after its spectrum allocation for GSM licence.

According to Sanjiv Sinha, regional head - East and COO, Kolkata Circle, Tata Teleservices, "We have got the licence for rolling out GSM services in 13 circles. We will soon roll out services in Kolkata, Bihar and Orissa. Currently we have 1.8 million customers and 600 cell sites in Bengal, which we also intend to increase in 2009."