Reliance Info records 7.5 cr SMSes on New Year

Reliance Infocomm recorded over 4.5 crore outgoing messages on the New Year's day and around 3 crore on December 31 "� the largest number sent from any network.

The number is also the largest on the CDMA major's network during its three years of existence and majority of the subscribers had used the company's recently launched SMS top-up card.

This is in comparison with Idea Cellular's 1.2 crore SMSs generated from its network from across eight circles in the country, and that of eight million recorded by Airtel in Mumbai and New Delhi. Airtel's all-India figures were not immediately available.

The number of SMSs sent from other networks were also not provided, with most of the operators stating that it would take a couple of days to collate them.

"Our all India network has been witnessing a huge SMS traffic during the two days, that is on the eve of the New Year and on January 1. It peaked at over 45 million (4.5 crore) messages on the New Year's Day, with a flood of SMSs as users were exchanging greetings," Reliance Infocomm President (wireless) S P Shukla told Business Standard.

This is one of the largest SMS traffic handled by any network on a single day, he claimed.

A majority of the subscribers made use of the recently-launched SMS top-up card priced at Rs 180. The top-up card allows subscribers to send 18,000 messages over six months, and this works out to be 1 paisa per SMS.

According to Shukla, the SMS recharge voucher proved to be immensely popular among the youth, who constitutes about 20 per cent of the company's subscribers.

Demand from other segments, including corporate and post-paid customers were also high during the period.

According to Airtel sources, the company had recorded over 6 million outgoing SMSs in Mumbai during the two days, while in New Delhi it stood at around 8 million.

Of the total of around 8 million, 5 million was registered on December 31 and remaining on the New Year Day. The nation-wide figures were not immediately available.