Tata Indicom tragets 15% growth Bihar-Jharkhand

Patna, Jun 14 (UNI) Tata Teleservices Limited, India's leading mobile service provider, has targetted business growth of 15 per cent and increase its number of subscribers by three times in Bihar and Jharkhand during the current fiscal.

Launching the Tata Indicom's 'Freedom Call Voucher', that offers free and unlimited outgoing calls to any local Tata mobile set and walky phones, TTS Chief Operating Officer (Bihar Circle) Z M Siddiquie here today said despite entering the markets 'comparatively late', they were experiencing ''handsome growth'' both in terms of revenue collection and in the number of subscribers during the past couple of years.

Later talking to UNI, Mr Siddiquie clarified that with the present growth rate they were confident of achieve the top position in terms of enjoying the market share among the country's major mobile service providers not only at the national level but also in the whole of Eastern Region including Bihar and Jharkhand by 2009.

Claiminig that the growth in the cell phone market in Bihar and Jaharkhand as one of the highest in the country, Mr Siddiquie said during the last financial year Tata Indicom mobile service grew by more than 14 per cent in these two states, forcing Tata Teleservices to open more than 150 True Value Shoppe to take their total number to over 325 in these states so far.

''We are planning to open about 200 more such distribution centres in both the states during this year, besides taking the service network to all the 38 districts in Bihar and 23 in neighbouring Jharkhand within the next three months,''Mr Siddiquie informed.

He, however, refused to disclose the amount of investment required for this purpose.

Coming back to the uniqueness of the newly launched call voucher, the TTS COO said Tata Indicom was the first mobile service provider in the country to offer free unlimited local on net outgoing calls.

Moreover, he said the Feedom Call Vouchers would be available across the country at the throwaway price of Rs 325 for 30 days validity which would also provide Rs 150 bonus talk time for other calls.

''It also offers attractive rates for calling other phones like only Rs 0.49 per minute for the local mobile calls and Rs 0.99 for local fixed line calls per minute. However, for STD calls the charges would Rs 2.49 per minute,'' Mr Siddiquie informed.

He also announced the launch of three new colour mobile handsets for the customers here and claimed that pre-paid mobile segment is growing fast and presently constituted about 92 per cent of the country's incremental market share in that segment.

UNI