Airtel, Aircel woo data users with Rs 1 plans

Telecom companies are back to wooing subscribers with low rates.

This time, however, they are not selling cheap calls; they are eyeing subscribers who have never used an internet plan.

Bharti Airtel’s hugely advertised plan of watching an entire music video or a cricket clip for Rs 1 is already gaining traction.

Through this plan, a subscriber, who would be sent the link to a portal that hosts 30,000 videos, is free to browse there.

However, download charges apply; an average high-quality three-minute video could burn account for 10-15 megabytes of data.

Airtel’s campaign has taken off and the company is hoping the youthful positioning and humorous bent in the advertisements would generate interest.

Analysts say the operator’s move to liken a video to a service is strategic -- video downloads are account for the highest data consumption.

Baburajan K, editor of Telecom Lead, feels the technology compatibility Airtel videos offer would differentiate it from YouTube.

“They (Airtel) have an edge because they claim their technology is compatible across 2G, 3G and GPRS. Not all devices might be compatible with YouTube,” he says. Airtel claims the technology works across 500 mobile devices.

Another operator, Aircel, has a different strategy to rope in first-time internet users. After bringing out data packs that last a day, the company now plans to offer economical data plans to small users.

Priced at less than Rs 1 a day, the company’s new plan in Mumbai is valid for a month.

A subscriber can download 100 megabytes in a month.

The operator hopes the low-entry

point plan would attract subscribers for whom inflated bills are a concern.

“This plan is useful for consumers who would want to use only applications such as Whatsapp. Even if I use Whatsapp the entire month, the data consumption is as low as 10 megabytes, because even photos and videos shared through this app are compressed,” said a Mumbai-based telecom analyst.

With this plan, Aircel wants its subscribers to become regular internet users, as opposed to consuming a large amount of data on a single day, with small recharges.

Vikas Kakwani, circle business head (Mumbai), Aircel, claims smartphone consumers, too, are staying away from data usage. “About 40 per cent of the smartphone population are data subscribers,” he says.

He believes 100 megabytes of data usage a month is good for a first-time user.

The substantial growth in internet usage in India would drive subscription, he said, adding the number of mobile internet users stood at four million in 2009; in 2012, it stood at 90 million.

Aircel feels the increasing smartphone sales would help the company increase the spread of data users.

“Almost all the phones that are being bought now are smartphones,” Kakwani says.

Almost all telecom players are aggressive pushing data plans, especially to those who are yet to try data subscription.

“There are many such offers from data players. If these services become popular, telecom companies would become healthy,” says Baburajan.

Analysts say the next phase of growth for telecom operators would be driven by data businesses, as voice call rates have stabilised and growth in subscriber numbers has reached a point of stagnation.