Hutch blitz sparks off mobile war in Vidarbha

 When it entered, Hutch launched an ad blitz announcing BPL Mobile was now Hutch. Rivals Tata Indicom, Idea, Airtel, and Reliance Infocomm too had to take up lots of  advertising space to counter Hutch's arrival.

 "The market had almost crashed and we were reduced to offering a standard 20x30 ft hoarding for under Rs 1 lakh just to pay the municipal corporation tax and retain the site," said a hoarding contractor.

 Hutch's arrival not only changed that but made it difficult for regular summer season advertisers such as ice-cream and soft-drink companies to find good sites. "They were all waiting for us to go to their doors and beg them for hiring our sites. They would have got them much cheaper than last year's rates. Now they call everyday and we don't have the sites they want," said another top advertising agency executive.

 Sources in cell companies say it is not Hutch's arrival alone that has the industry shaken up. "We knew they would be coming here after they acquired BPL's business. But their plan to ramp up service levels by adding infrastructure has got everybody aflutter," said a cell company executive.

 Except for BSNL - always slow in responding to such activities - all the other players have forgotten the end-of-the-financial-year syndrome and dipped into contingency funds without waiting for budget approvals from controlling centres. "We informed Mumbai and got the go-ahead in the last week of March," a cell company executive said.

 Hutch, industry sources said, has announced it would soon be introducing high speed data services based on EDGE technology - more advanced than the present GPRS technology.

 Hutchison Whampoa top executives said the company would increase investments in the newly-acquired Maharashtra circle. "Investment this year will be equivalent to what we did in the last ten years," a high ranking official of the company said. The main focus remains delivering better services. The number of cell towers is being quadrupled and market penetration improved. Further, multi-layered Hutch outlets are also to be opened where the brand will be promoted.