Now, T24 mobile service in Mumbai circle

MUMBAI, INDIA: T24 (Talk24), the joint venture between retail giant Future Group and Tata Teleservices Limited announced on Thursday the launch of its GSM mobile services for Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra circle in Mumbai.

It’s nearly nine months, since T24 mobile service was first rolled out in Andhra Pradesh after Tata Teleservices Limited and Future Group had announced strategic partnership in February 2010.

Today, T24 mobile service are available across telecom circles including Karnataka, Gujarat, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Orissa, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh with total customer base of over 700,000.

The partnership is based on the unique marketing concept of ‘retailer-telco’ and aimed at loyal customers of Future Group’s retail brands like Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Pantaloons, Central, Brand Factory, Home Town, eZone, Aadhar and others.

According to Kishor Biyani, Future Group’s Group CEO, T24 mobile service is based on the loyalty of customers where the customers are rewarded with free talk time for their shopping.

“In just nine months’ journey across pan-India, we gained customer base of over 700,000. And we are targeting 10 million customers in the next 2-3 years and it would be about 30-40 per cent of the base of the loyal customers that do shopping twice or more at Future Group’s outlets,” Biyani said.

“This is a unique marketing alliance between a retailer and a telecom operator in India and offers us direct access to millions of Future Group customers through its widespread retail presence across India,” said Deepak Gulati, Tata Teleservices’ executive president — Mobility Business Division.

Brand T24 banks on the innovative and value propositions of ‘shop more, talk more’ and ‘talk more, shop more’. Here, the customers are rewarded with free talk-time for every purchase worth over Rs.350 at any of the Future Group’s shopping outlets.

Similarly, customers buying items worth above Rs.2000 in Big Bazaar will get Rs.84 worth of free talk for every purchase. Plans will keep evolving to offer ever more attractive options to the customers.

At present the mobile service is available in a ‘prepaid’ model; however, Gulati informed that it will be rolled out in ‘postpaid’ in the coming weeks. In terms of ARPUs, he added the service is expected to offer 10-15 per cent higher ARPUs compared to telecom industry’s ARUPs.

The ‘prepaid’ re-charge coupons will be available on Tata DoCoMo outlets as well as any other mobile outlets.