Virgin Mobile eyes 14 per cent revenue share from Bengal

Cellular company, Virgin Mobile, is looking at earning close to 14 per cent of its revenues from West Bengal, up from around 10 per cent right now, as it plans further penetration in the region.

At a press conference in Kolkata, M A Madhusudan, CEO of Virgin Mobile, said, “We are expanding our reach in West Bengal as we expect almost 14 per cent of our revenues to come from West Bengal.”

The company is also aiming at 10 per cent market share of the telecom market in India over the next four to five years.

“We currently have 4-5 handsets in the market that are priced between Rs 1,499 and Rs 4,000. While we are concentrating on more value-added-services (VAS), the new handsets that we would launch would be priced higher to support the VAS,” Madhusudan said.

According to Prasad Narasimhan, chief marketing officer of Virgin Mobile, “Our focus areas will continue to be on VAS for differentiation. Around 14 per cent of our revenues come from VAS currently, which also includes SMSes.”

“We are currently talking to content providers for offering video and audio content on our mobiles. We are looking to partner with social networking sites and also Bollywood content providers for more VAS,” Narasimhan added.

Currently, Virgin Mobile’s average revenue per user (ARPU) is in the range of Rs 200-300.

It is also exploring the possibility of launching a post-paid service.