This is as part of its marketing strategy to cover 90 per cent of Karnataka's population by 2009 and to achieve deeper rural penetration, Venkatesh V, CEO, Mobile Services, Bharti Airtel, Karnataka, said.
Announcing its "Grameena Mobile Kranthi" campaign, he said that the next wave of explosive cellular growth in the state is expected to ensue in rural Karnataka. Even though Karnataka has 17 million mobile users in general, the number of rural mobile users in the state was just five million, accounting for just 13 percent of penetration in rural market.
As part of the campaign to expand subscriber base and focus on developing the rural market, Airtel has partnered with Nokia to come up with two handsets that would have the menu and sms facilities in Kannada.
The Nokia monochrome 1200 model would be available at Rs 1272 while the Nokia 1208 colour handset would be available at Rs 1560. The handsets would come along with a free Airtel mobile connection and recharge of Rs 295, lifetime validity and local calling rates at Re one per minute and STD charges at Rs 1.50 per minute, he said.
Airtel has also tiedup with IFFCO, one of the largest organisation of cooperatives to help farmers make the most use of mobile telephone. Through the tie up farmers would receive five voice messages free daily giving information on market rates, weather and other agricultural inputs, said Govindrajan, Head, South India, IFFCO.
