Business Standard: Growth in Telecom in India, as expected, is coming from the rural sector now: Almost 35% of Tata Teleservices’ business comes from B and C category towns. Only 1% of this population has adopted the mobile, and Tata Teleservices is trying to push subscriptions by marketing door-to-door, selling sub $30 handsets and involving local administration in villages and towns.
According to Sanjay Kapoor, Joint President, Bharti Airtel, their business has grown by 166% in Circle C towns in June, compared to 65% in the Metros. Bharti intends to spend $1.5 billion to improve network connectivity in rural areas. Reliance Infocomm will spend around Rs. 1500 crores (around $318 million) to expand its GSM coverage from 340 towns to 4000 towns in the circles it operates in.
Handset manufacturers like Nokia and Samsung too are doing their bit with advertising and distribution, and sales are rapidly increasing.
Dinesh Sharma, Marketing and Sales Head of Samsung CDMA feels that incorporation of local languages into the handsets and voice based SMS will drive growth in the future.
Related:
– Indian Mobile Subscriber Base Reaches 111.23M; Broadband Inches Upto 1.7M
– Is Going Local The Next Big Thing?
– Reliance’s R World Launches In Hindi; To Go Multilingual
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