Reliance Info eyes 3m pre-paid users by July

Reliance Infocomm is targetting three million pre-paid subscribers by end of July 2004.

Since its foray into the pre-paid mobile market in February this year, the company has already cornered over 3.5 lakh customers.

Satisfied with the number of subscribers it has cornered within a month of its launch, Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, said, "We have exceed our expectation and will soon reach 4 lakh subscribers. We have prepared ourselves for a sustainable long -term launch and we are running a marathon. This is just the beginning."

Reliance Infocomm, in the long-term, intends to cover 20-30 per cent market share.

Ambani was speaking on the sidelines of a conference to announce partnership with LG Electronics here today.

Reliance Infocomm is also planning to offer international roaming on its CDMA technology-enabled mobile phones.

Explaining the international roaming card, Manoj Modi, director of Reliance Infocomm, said, "we will soon introduce a SIM card which will enable the CDMA-based handset to work on the GSM network. We are testing the card and we expect to launch it in the second quarter of this year".

With the introduction of this card, Reliance will offer international roaming to its subscribers through both the network.

Later, LG Electronics president Mun Hwa Park told media persons that "LG Electronics is geared up to meet Reliance roadmap and will continue to provide state-of-the-art CDMA handsets."

He pointed out that Reliance is the number two customer of LG Electronics after Verizon of US.

"We expect the mobile market to grow very fast in the next three years," he added.

Considering the growing demand for handsets, LG is evaluating the option of setting up manufacturing facility in India. However, it is awaiting a clear government policy regarding the customs duty on mobile handsets.

Meanwhile, LG is planning to make LG Software centre in Bangalore as the research and development centre for its mobile handsets.

The company, which till now utilised its workforce for R&D facility across all its products, will now concentrate on software design development for mobile phones.

"This is expected to be an international hub for mobile handset particularly for its software activity," he added.

Within three years, the Bangalore software centre will be scaling up its employee strengthen from 300 to 1,000, he added.

LG Electronics commemorated the shipment of five million handsets to Reliance Infocomm today.