NEW DELHI, India-Indian cellular operator Bharti Cellular launched a mobile-phone service in Mumbai (Bombay) on 23 July. The operator unveiled a number of value-added offerings to its service, including free roaming and 30-second billing rates-a first in the Indian market. The operator hopes this offering will enable it to secure market share in a short timeframe.
Bharti Cellular, a fully owned subsidiary of Bharti Tele-Ventures, is the fourth mobile services provider in the city, which has a population of 15 million people and is the country’s financial capital. Bharti expects to win subscribers by offering a service with no roaming charges on calls placed through its AirTel mobile network anywhere in India, and the 30-second billing rate. Furthermore, Bharti will also waive airtime charges for calls logged to one international, one domestic long-distance and one local number registered by subscribers.
None of India’s other 12 cellular service providers offer free countrywide roaming on their networks, and all bill at one-minute increments. Incoming calls from other AirTel phones will also be free, as will short message service (SMS) and voice mail for the first three months.
“Today we bring to Bombay a world-class network and a slew of unique benefits for the first time to India,” said Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises.
The operator has said a number of benefits will be made available to prepaid subscribers, who now account for just more than half of India’s 7.4 million cellular subscribers.
While the value-added services might initially give Bharti an edge over the competition, industry analysts expect other operators to begin shortly offering similar packages.
