Tata Tele aims for 20% spoils

Tata Teleservices is aiming for a 20 per cent market share, which will place the company in the top two telecom players in the country, in next 3-4 years.

F A Vandrevala, chairman Tata Teleservices said, the Tata group's vision in all groups of businesses was to be one of the top few players and Tata Teleservices would aim to achieve the status over the next few years. Vandrevala was in Kolkata for the Tata Teleservices launch.

The company plans to invest Rs 9,000 crore for funding the geographical spread and its bouquet of products and services.

As part of this investment plan, the company would be investing Rs 250 crore in the Kolkata circle. Tata Teleservices has already installed over 160 cell sites and would be providing services in the greater Kolkata circle, comprising North and South 24 Parganas, Howrah and Kolkata.

The company would shortly launch its services in key cities across West Bengal such as Durgapur, Asansol and Siliguri, among others.

The company would offer mobile, fixed wireless, public telephone booths and a host of value added services. The company would offer both postpaid and prepaid based services in the region.

The company has set up 200 True Value shops, which were exclusive Tata Indicom shops to sell prepaid services and over 500 public telephone booths across the city going up to 1,000 in the next few days. Ajay Pandey, president Tata Teleservices said, 350 telephone booths were operational today.

Pandey said, with the launch in Kolkata, Tata Indicom services were now available in the four metros, in addition to the 775 other key cities and towns across the country. By March 2005, the company would offer services in an additional 40 cities primarily across the eastern part of India.The company has a subscriber base of 2.82 million.