IDEA Cellular which has 15.24% of the market share, has reached 55.90 million GSM subscribers and is now the country’s third largest GSM operator, based on the November figures from the Cellular Operators Association of India.
Idea Cellular added 2.5 million new subscribers in November to take its total tally to 55.9 million compared to 55.1 million of BSNL. IDEA showed an increased growth rate at 4.78% along with Aircel which grew at 5.79%. But in terms of total number of subscriber additions Bharti Airtel was still number one as it added close to 2.8 million subscribers and reached over 116 million total subscribers even though that adds up to a growth rate of 2.47%.
The mid-ranked B circles continued to be the regions with the fastest growth rates, although Government decided to stop pre-paid card services in Jammu and Kashmir which resulted in drop in mobile phone users.
Idea Cellular has announced “Outgoing Free”, an offer that allows the first two minutes free on all outgoing to local and STD numbers for its prepaid customer base.
Idea maintains that the first two minutes free on all outgoing calls reiterates its endeavor to innovate and keep ahead of the pack in the prepaid segment. This customer offering is available on all local mobile calls on purchase of the Rs 250 voucher with Rs 50 talktime, all local calls on purchase of the Rs 750 voucher with Rs 75 talktime, and all STD and local calls on purchase of the Rs 2000 voucher with Rs 200 talk time. Once the customer has completed usage of first two minutes, calls will be charged at 1 Rupee for all cell-to-cell local calls, and Rs 2 for other local and STD calls for a period of 30 days from the date of purchase of these vouchers. This offer is also applicable to lifelong customers.
Announcing the launch, Vikram Mehmi, CEO, Idea Cellular, said, “With ‘Outgoing Free, ’ Idea Cellular will offer the most competitive prepaid product in the marketplace. The idea is to continue offering our customers great value for money(VFM) products, supported by our factory of innovative value added Services. The combination is hard to resist, and is sure to change the prepaid industry as we know it.”