Idea subscriber base surges on prepaid thrust

Encouraged by the response to its recent innovative packages, Idea Cellular is planning to lay more thrust on the ChitChat, its pre-paid cellular service.

The company expects that the pre-paid segment will constitute about 90 per cent of its total business within the next few months. At present, about 80 per cent of the total billing comes from the pre-paid category.

"Our decision to introduce the Rs 99 starter pack and a lower outgoing tariff at Rs 1.49 per minute, which were later followed by our competitors, has resulted in a substantial growth of our pre-paid card sales," Sukanta Dey, the chief marketing officer of Idea Cellular, said.

Idea recently announced a free ChitChat connection on every purchase of a Nokia handset. It has also announced the lowest-ever SMS rates on pre-paid cards at just 30 paise per message.

Following these measures saw Idea's subscriber base, which has been growing at a slower pace in the last few months in the Andhra Pradesh circle compared with its competitors' numbers, has started growing rapidly.

During November, Idea's subscriber base in Andhra Pradesh increased by 12,525 to reach 3,53,906. The growth was visibly larger compared to a rise of 3,060 in September and 8,200 in October. The company lost its leadership position to Bharti Mobile's Airtel in May this year.

For the first time, the pre-paid rates have become cheaper than the post-paid tariffs because the cellular companies have realised that the lower tariffs can only drive the growth in numbers in the wake of competition from CDMA operators, Dey said.

The GSM technology offers many advantages to the customers because it is based on SIM (subscriber identification module), and operates on a single number, he explained.

The company is now working on a few more value-added services to attract more customers.

"On an all India basis, we have grown at a very faster rate compared to our competitors. With our operations spread in just five circles, we have grown to 2 million subscriber base, while Airtel, which operates in 16 circles, has four million subscribers," Dey made a comparison. "We added the second one million subscribers in just a year's time because of our foray into the Delhi market," he added.