RCom places order for 25 mn GSM SIM cards

Reliance Communications (RCom), the telecommunications arm of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), has placed orders for an additional 25 million GSM SIM cards with Korean vendors, with delivery expected to commence by the second week of next month.

The additional orders will increase the company’s total order size for the first six months of this year to around 40 million.

The order has been placed with three Korean vendors who held discussions with the company on February 14 evening, sources close to the development said.

The names of the vendors could not be ascertained.

This is in addition to an earlier order placed for 15 million SIM cards, out of which 10 million have already been shipped. RCom will begin selling these cards within five-seven days of its landing, they said.

When contacted, an RCom spokesperson said, “The tremendous response to our recent successful launch of nationwide GSM services makes us confident of achieving higher benchmarks, for which we have started gearing up on multiple fronts".

The company was selling GSM connections at Rs 49 with lifetime validity.

RCom has added around 5 million new subscribers in January 2009, with a majority of the additions coming from its newly-launched GSM services.

The Anil Ambani-led telecom company, which has operations across the country, has 66.3 million subscribers, making it the second leading operator in the country after Bharti Airtel.