Vodafone, Idea, Airtel, Tata and Aircel Terminating Freebies and Talktime Vouchers for Revenue Gain

Mobile phone companies in India have taken what is seems the next round of measures to boost the slumping sales and margins by slashing freebies and reducing talktime on pre-paid discount coupons. The industry leaders like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Aircel, Idea Cellular and Tata Teleservices are all aggressively pursuing such strategies to thrive in the market figures which is witnessing fierce competition. 

Reportedly, the widely used discount vouchers, also known as special tariff cards, provided for the pre-paid customers, form the biggest portion of the revenue of the mobile phone companies, amounting to 70 %. However, over the past three years, the revenue generation from this product has shown signs of stagnation. The country has more than 906 million plus mobile connections, out of which more than 96 % is pre-paid connections.  

Airtel offers discount vouchers in Delhi costing Rs.28, which facilitates subscribers to make national calls at the rate of Rs. 0.012 per second. Bharti Airtel has slashed the validity of this card from 90 days to 60 days. 

Similarly, Idea increased the price of a discount card from Rs. 72 to Rs. 97. This card enables users to call at the rate of 1.2 ps for a second with a validity of 90 days. Vodafone made its changes in Kolkata with the reduction in the number of minutes from 65 to 55 for a voucher costing Rs.22, which offered a ‘minutes pack’ with a validity of 5 days. 

Source: Economic Times