Hutch launches Fun Cards

Chennai, Jun 22: Hutch, India's leading pure play cellular service provider, today introduced Fun Cards -- scratch cards that offer favourite caller tunes and ring tones for the customers.

''This is another first from our stable'', Hutchison Essar CEO, Chennai and Tamil Nadu circle, Kumar Ramanathan, exulted at a press conference.

''This is the first ever innovation in the cellular service industry that offers VAS in a tangible form', he said, adding that the Fun cards would be availbale in three categories. They are Ringtones (containing three ringtones), Caller Tunes (containing Caller Tunes subscription and one Caller Tune) and Caller Tunes Shuffle (containing a set of four caller tunes).

''These cards are preloaded with specific content so that the customer can choose from many options. The content currently covers categories like Bollywood, International, Classics, Devotional and Regional Hits'', he said.

Mr Kumar said the fun cards were attractively priced at Rs 20, Rs 40 and Rs 45 for ringtones, caller tunes and caller tunes shuffle.

The caller tunes and caller tunes shuffle cards covers the first month subscription of Rs 30. From the second month onwards, the subscriber would have to pay Rs 30 for using the caller tunes.

With the easy to download cards, the customers have to scratch on the back of the card, which contains a 16 digit code. SMS the 16 digit number to 123 and the caller tunes and ring tones could be downloaded.

Mr Kumar said the fun cards would be available to all the 17 million Hutch customers across India through its 3100 retailers. On way forward, he said Hutch would be adding new cards on monthly basis and was planning topical cards like festival specific cards, new films, among others. ''We hope that this new value added service will consolidate our market position even further'', he added.

Mr Sandeep Abraham, Head Marketing Operations, demonstrated to the media how to download the caller tunes and ring tones.

UNI