Launches New Telecom Brand—T24—on GSM Platform
- Alliance brings unique marketing concept of ‘Retailer-Telco Partnership’ to India—for the first time, ever
- Offers innovative and first-of-its-kind value propositions to telecom customers in India—‘Shop More, Talk More’ and ‘Talk More, Shop More’
- T24 services rollout to begin shortly, pan-India presence in Year 2010 itself
Tata Teleservices Limited, the country’s youngest and fastest-growing pan-India dual-technology telecom operator, has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with Indian retail giant Future Group, to offer mobile telephony services under a new brand name—T24—on the GSM platform. The exciting new brand was unveiled at a press conference jointly addressed by TTSL Managing Director Anil Sardana and Future Group Chief Executive Officer Kishore Biyani.
Tata Teleservices Limited will commence the commercial launch of GSM operations under the brand name T24 shortly, starting with the telecom Circles in South India.
“This is a unique marketing alliance between a retailer and a telecom operator in India, and offers us direct access to millions of Future Group customers through its widespread retail presence across India,” Mr Anil Sardana said. “T24 stands for Talk 24, and is a natural choice of brand-name for us in this unique partnership, one that it will provide customers with a dual advantage all 24 hours of the day—‘Shop More, Talk More’ and ‘Talk More, Shop More’. T24 is yet another compelling offering from the House of Tatas, in keeping with Tata Teleservices Limited’s stated objective of constantly innovating to redefine the telecom experience in the country,” he added.
“I am delighted at this partnership with Tata Teleservices Limited. The T24 service is a unique offering which is innovative yet simple and provides customers a powerful value proposition,” Mr Kishore Biyani, Chief Executive Officer of Future Group, said. “Customers will get shopping benefits for talking, and talk-time benefits each time they shop. This would also reinforce our presence in the consumption space—in keeping with Future Group’s vision of offering a unique shopping experience to our loyal customers, cutting across product and industry categories,” he added.
Under the partnership agreement, Future Group will sell TTSL GSM connections under the T24 brand-name to customers visiting its retail outlets across all formats and locations. This coming together of India’s leading telecom operator and the country’s leading player in the consumption space will offer a unique customer proposition—a talk-time offering, cross-bundled with other consumption categories.
About Tata Teleservices Limited
Tata Teleservices Limited is one of India’s leading private telecom service providers, having a pan-India presence across all of India’s 22 telecom Circles. The company offers integrated telecom solutions to its customers under the brands Tata Indicom, Tata DOCOMO, Virgin Mobile, Tata Photon and Tata Walky—and uses both the CDMA and GSM technology platform(s) for its wireless networks. Tata Teleservices Limited, along with Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited, operates in more than 420,000 towns and villages across the country, serving nearly 60 million subscribers. After its collaboration with Japan’s NTT DOCOMO in November 2008, Tata Teleservices has so far launched GSM services under the TATA DOCOMO brand name in 15 telecom Circles, and the remaining part of the country is also expected to be covered shortly. Tata Teleservices’ bouquet of telephony services includes mobile services, wireless desktop phones, public booth telephony and Wireline services.
For details, visit www.tatateleservices.com, www.tataindicom.com and www.tatadocomo.com
About Future Group
Future Group, led by its founder and Group CEO, Mr Kishore Biyani, is one of India’s leading business houses with multiple businesses spanning across the consumption space. While retail forms the core business activity of Future Group, group subsidiaries are present in consumer finance, insurance, brand development, retail real estate development, retail media, logistics and information technology and services. Led by its flagship enterprise, Pantaloon Retail, the group operates close to 15 million square feet of retail space in 73 cities and towns and 65 rural locations across India. Headquartered in Mumbai (Bombay), Pantaloon Retail employs around 25,000 people and is listed on the Indian stock exchanges. The company follows a multi-format retail strategy that captures almost the entire consumption basket of Indian customers. In the lifystyle segment, the group operates Pantaloons, a fashion retail chain and Central, a chain of seamless malls. In the value segment, its marquee brand, Big Bazaar is a hypermarket format that combines the look, touch and feel of Indian bazaars with the choice and convenience of modern retail.
The group’s speciality retail formats sportswear retailer, Planet Sports, electronics retailer eZone, home improvement chain Home Town and rural retail chain Aadhaar, among others. It also operates popular shopping portal www.futurebazaar.com.
Future Capital Holdings, the group’s financial arm, operates a consumer finance arm with branches in 150 locations. Other group companies include, Future Generali—the group’s insurance venture in partnership with Italy’s Generali Group; Future Brands—a brand development and IPR company, Future Supply Chains; providing logistics and distribution solutions to group companies and business partners Future Media; a retail media initiative; and Future Knowledge Services – for information technology and services. Future Group’s joint venture partners include, US-based stationery products retailers, Staples and Middle East-based Axiom Communications. Future Group believes in developing strong insights on Indian consumers and building businesses based on Indian ideas, as espoused in the group’s core value of ‘Indian-ness.’
The Group’s corporate credo is, ‘Rewrite rules, Retain values’.
