Prepaid pick-up.

[niket 0]

RIM's prepaid service targets the individual

AJOY K DAS

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, MARCH 03, 2004 12:53:49 AM ]

KOLKATA: Get ready to welcome another facet of personalisation. Or call it individualism if you like. From clocks to wrist watches, music systems to walkmans and desktops to laptops, the personalisation of communication devices has rapidly come into its own. A close look at Reliance India Mobile’s (RIM) prepaid service, launched a little over two weeks ago, shows how this trend is now paying off for mobile phone companies.

RIM has notched up a 3 lakh subscriber base across 111 cities, in which Reliance Infocomm had started its RIM pre-paid service. Reliance says this is beyond expectations. But what has come as a surprise after a survey of customer profiles is that as many as 43% of the 3 lakh subscribers are ‘no-phone’ individuals; in other words, consumers who do not have landlines.

It’s a pointer to the changed perception of the mobile phone as a personal device, that it is preferred over a landline today. For Infocomm, the shift can translate into an opportunity to enter a virgin market with its prepaid CDMA service.

“The trend has already emerged in China where a large number of mobile subscribers do not have landlines. This is beginning to happen in India too,” Kaushik Roy, head of marketing, Reliance Infocomm says.

“The high number of RIM prepaid subscribers without landlines also indicated the success of our pricing and bundling strategy, which is being perceived as a value even by those who had been doing without a landline or using the neighbourhood PCOs,” he adds.

Customer base profiling has revealed that the bulk of prepaid subscribers are businessmen from small and medium enterprises, professionals and students, in the 25-30 year age bracket.

Another finding was that 45% of new RIM prepaid customers are existing users of the GSM service.

“The sign of the times is individualism. So why share telephony? A landline is not pre-paid and not personalised and therefore has inherent disadvantages in controlling bills,” Mr Roy says.

The marketing honchos at Reliance Infocom reckon that as its CDMA prepaid services grow to 1.2m subscribers over the next three months, the trend of ‘no-phone’ individuals starting to get networked will strengthen. “This is a new market that RIM pre-paid has opened up,” says Mr Roy.

According to him, the full potential of the RIM prepaid service is yet to be unfurled because the depth of marketing and distribution reach will stabilise over the next three months and growth rates can only accelerate thereafter.

But with this growth, Infocomm’s communication strategy will also evolve. Much of the advertising will move to Doordarshan for greater penetration, to match the wider marketing and distribution of the prepaid service.

Presently, Infocomm’s communication of RIM’s prepaid service is at its first stage — building brand image, confidence and a perception of value proposition. Mr Roy said that once this is done, communication will move along twin routes.

The first will address the high end of the market and possibly the metros, where RIM prepaid will be all about the internet, roaming in a single network and tie-ups with Nokia and LG for multi-media.

On the second track will be communication for smaller towns where the focus will be on cheaper SMS and talktime, roaming rates with primary Motorola handsets and RIM’s basic values.

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[niket 0]

Today I purchased RIM prepaid for my brother. (RD 2030 Handset)

more will come..

[jigar657 0]

gr8 to hear that...

this time too, ppl as usual said on launch that rim prepaid will be flop.

i hope this gives the answer.

jigar

[sunil_jok 2]

i didnt hear anything like that. on the contrary everyone was eagerly waiting for the launch of the prepaid service. in fact i think most ppl were expecting much more from reliance prepaid.

[niket 0]

At RWW ppl saying that "Reliance coming with Postpaid --> Prepaid scheme but when they don't know".

[Chirag 5]

At RWW ppl saying that "Reliance coming with Postpaid --> Prepaid scheme but when they don't know".

how can u ppl bet on such talks... They have been giving such vague answers always!!

[niket 0]

Reliance signs 400,000 pre-paid clients

Source: CIOL, Friday, March 05, 2004

Has signed up about 400,000 subscribers for its pre-paid mobile phone cards since it launched them last month, according to the Reliance, head of marketing.

MUMBAI: Reliance Infocomm has signed up about 400,000 subscribers for its pre-paid mobile phone cards since it launched them last month, Kaushik Roy, head of marketing, told Reuters.

Reuters Infocomm is 45-percent owned by Reliance Industries, the flagship of the eponymous business group.

Edited March 6, 2004 by Ashokjp