Virgin mobile, a UK based mobile company, made a franchise with Tata Mobile to launch a new mobile service in India. The major target group of this mobile service are young people between the ages of 14-25. Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Mobile, said that the mobile service includes music, news on Indian movies, sports, stock market.
International Herald Tribune reports:
The British billionaire said his company would launch Virgin Mobile handset services through Tata Teleservices Ltd, a top Indian mobile operator, in 50 cities initially, expanding to more than 1,000 cities by December.
"India looks very, very promising. We need only a small percentage of the market to do well," Branson told reporters at a news conference.
Branson said the size of India's youth market was staggering.
"It's six times the size of the U.K.'s population and we are bound to have lots of fun here," he said.
According to Branson, initially his company is targeting 5 million base subscribers and be able to generate revenue within next three years. The company will offer mobile handsets ranging from US$50 to US$125.
Virgin Mobile, a part of Virgin Communications, is one of the first virtual mobile network operators in the world. Starting 1999, the company does not have its own networks but uses the existing mobile phone networks of various companies to offer its service. Currently, it is operating in United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United States and France. In India, Virgin is the first mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).
Virgin Mobile India, the name of the franchise, initially will offer its services in 50 Indian cities from which it would expand to 1000 cities.
Tata Mobile is subsidiary of the famous Tata Group of companies. Currently, it is one of the largest mobile phone service providers in India having network in 5,000 Indian cities and towns. Ratan Tata, the chairman of the group is also very optimistic about the future of this franchise. He believes that it would bring freshness and innovation to the Indian mobile subscribers.
India is one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world. Since July 2007, Indian mobile phone companies are getting around 8 million subscribers each month due to lower call rate and cheap handsets. Last month, Indian mobile phone companies added 8.77 million users which is even higher than China, another major mobile phone market. Still, only a quarter of the Indian population is enjoying the mobile phone service. Indian government is planning to increase the number of mobile phone subscribers up to 500 million by 2010.
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