Uninor has announced its first month-end subscriber numbers since the service launch in December 2009. By the end of the month Uninor had secured over 1.2 million (12 lakh) subscribers from the eight circles where its GSM service was available. The company had launched in the circles of UP (West), UP (East), Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh on December 3, 2009. Services in Orissa were launched later on December 22nd.
“We are building on our launch – scaling up our network and our distribution. We will continue to focus on customer experience – listening closely and respecting their wishes. We will also compete for every new subscriber. In a market this competitive, it will never be easy, but we have a long term ambition and we have made a positive start,” said Stein-Erik Vellan, Managing Director.
Circle | Subscribers (app. in lakhs) |
UP (W) (incl. Uttarakhand) | 1.51
|
UP (E) | 1.72 |
Bihar (incl Jharkhand) | 1.27 |
Orissa | 0.44 |
Andhra Pradesh | 1. 57 |
Tamil Nadu (incl. Chennai) | 2.02 |
Kerala | 0.90 |
Karnataka | 2.64 |
As per guidelines, the company has already submitted its monthly numbers to TRAI and COAI. It being early days and less than a month since fully operational circles, the company does not expect any significant impact of these numbers on the 2009 calendar year revenues.
“Considering our subscribers currently come from only 8 circles, of which one was launched towards the end of the month, these numbers are encouraging. I credit a committed team and thank our customers for choosing Uninor,” Vellan added.
Uninor had launched its service with two pan-India price plans –talklonger@29p designed for customers who make longer calls and callmore@29p for those who call more often.
Talklonger@29p offers customers local calls at 29 paise per minute and STD calls at 49 paise per minute, with a call set up fee of 39 paise that is charged only once when a call is activated. Callmore@29p offers local calls at 29 paise per minute and STD calls at 49 paise per minute, with a daily rental of Rs. 2.00.
““We are still in a very early phase, but this is an indication that our consumers indeed perceive our price plans to be attractive. Our strategy is to ensure that Uninor delivers the best value for the majority who use their phones to talk for longer than a few seconds.” said David Meneghello, Executive Vice-President, Marketing.