Mobile re-charge made easier

BANGALORE: One of the most favored services in the booming mobile sector in India is the pre-paid service. Reliance foray in to the pre-paid service for its CDMA service last month found four lakh new users in less than 30 days. However big the market is, according to a study, 30 per cent of India's prepaid customers leave outlets, disappointed as recharge cards of their choice of operator or the denomination they prefer is not available resulting in customer churn. The virtual prepaid airtime system aims to address this issue and help operators retain their customers.

Cashing in on this service is the newly launched India Pre-Paid Services, the country's first company to offer virtual prepaid airtime. The company has currently tied up with Bharti and Hutchinson to introduce its service of virtual airtime recharge.

India Pre-Paid Services is a 50:50 joint venture between The Pre-Paid Company, South Africa and Indian promoters ex-chief of Motorola India operations, Pramod Saxena and Sanjiv Lamba - a businessman with interests in the hospitality and office infrastructure sector. The Pre-Paid Company is South Africa's largest distributor of pre-paid airtime in both the physical and virtual arena.

Initially, the company will only offer virtual prepaid airtime services in Delhi and Mumbai, the country’s two largest markets for mobile prepaid cards. Trial operations with the operators in these cities for offering virtual services will begin later this month. In the trial phase, it will offer virtual prepaid airtime services through 200 retailers in Delhi and Mumbai which will go up to 2000 retailers by the year end.

Over the next 12-18 months, India Prepaid Services plans to tie up with all Indian operators and have a nationwide network for offering virtual prepaid services to the consumers across the country. The company is planning a network of third party retailers such as banks, big retailers, petrol companies and large shopping malls among others, to make pre-paid recharge accessible.

"Globally, the prepaid segment forms a significant portion of the subscriber base and revenues of operators. Today, the prepaid recharge market is heading to a virtual/electronic environment from the physical distribution state. As part of our next stage of growth, we are targeting exciting developing markets such as India," said Brett Levy, founder and executive Chairman of The Prepaid Company.

"India's prepaid market is set for phenomenal growth with the entry of CDMA operators as well. All operators are focusing on strengthening their prepaid propositions through flexible tariff options and a growing channel. The physical distribution process is getting increasingly complex which is why we believe that the virtual prepaid recharge airtime concept will benefit operators, retailers and end consumers in a market like India," said, Pramod Saxena, Co-Promoter, India Prepaid Services. "India Prepaid Services will create an application service platform that will connect the operators with the retailers across the country. At a later stage, this virtual service platform can be used by non telecom companies to deliver all kinds of payments services to the end consumers."

This new concept will allow consumers to recharge their prepaid airtime of any mobile operator and of any denomination from third party retailers. Retailers too will benefit hugely from this service as they will no longer be required to hold airtime stock in physical form of cards and will have a fully integrated virtual ordering and delivery system available 24 hours a day. For mobile operators, India Pre-Paid Services will help streamline their distribution system through a single network built on India Pre-Paid Services' proprietary software application. Operators will also be in a position to track sales of their prepaid connections through data on customer buying patterns.

"After having spent over five years with Motorola and several more in the telecom industry, it was important that I used this experience in being part of something as exciting as this new venture. I will play an advisory role at India Prepaid Services helping them establish their operations and market their services." added, Saxena.

CIOL Bureau