Virgin Mobile to invest Rs 500 cr

Virgin Mobile India Limited, a 50:50 joint venture between Tata Teleservices and the UK-based Virgin Group, plans to invest Rs 500 crore over the next six months on its mobile operations in the country.

The cellular operator, which has a presence in six telecom circles as of now, aims to extend its presence to around 1000 towns in all the 22 telecom circles across the country within two years.

“We would invest Rs 500 crore in the next six months on our mobile operations in the country. The investment will be made in areas like sales, brand promotion, distribution channels and customer care”, M A Madhusudan, chief executive officer, Virgin Mobile India told reporters here at the launch of the company's GSM mobile services.

He refused to comment on the number of targeted subscribers stating that Tata Teleservices was providing the combined subscriber base of all its mobile services brands including Tata Indicom, Tata Docomo and Virgin Mobile.

Virgin Mobile, a youth focused mobile operator intends to capture 10 per cent market share in mobile services in the urban youth segment in the country.

Virgin Mobile has rolled out its GSM mobile services in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Orissa.

Right from the day of launch, Virgin will have a presence in 27 towns of Orissa. The operator will have a network of around 6,000 outlets in the state which will cater to 65 per cent of the urban youth population.

Customers, who sign up for Virgin Mobile, can make local and STD calls within the network at 20 paise per minute. The tariff for local calls to other network has been fixed at 40 paise per minute and that of STD calls at 50 paise per minute.