Airtel slashes 2G data fees by 90%

On Wednesday, Bharti Airtel slashed its data usage charges by 90% in some circles, a day after Vodafone cut 2G data rates by 80% in three circles. And it could be the beginning of a long battle that will unfold in the months to come, people associated with the industry said."The next frontier for telecom firms in India is indeed data. It is still at an early stage of category development and we expect the growth momentum to only accelerate further. The overall internet penetration in India is low while the mobile penetration is several times higher. Hence, most consumers, especially in rural and semi-rural areas, will discover the power of the internet via the mobile," Vivek Mathur, chief commercial officer, Vodafone India, told TOI.India has third highest internet users in the world and is adding 70 million mobile internet subscribers a year. According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) May 2013 report, broadband penetration in India stands at about 1% against the mobile teledensity of 70.85% as of March 2013. A report by IAMAI and IMRB said the country is expected to have close to 165 million mobile internet users by March 2014, up from 87.1 million in December 2012. This is expected to grow to 164.8 million by March 2015, the report said. Bharti Airtel's recently announced one-rupee video downloads offer is aimed at luring potential customers to mobile internet, says an industry expert. The company's data customer base grew 136% year-on-year from 2.7 million in FY12 to 6.4 million in FY13. Data users as a percentage of Airtel's total customer base stand at 23.1%. For Reliance Communications (RCOM), the large traction in data usage comes from online hangouts. Gurdeep Singh, president & CEO (wireless business), RCOM, told TOI, "Our tie-ups with Facebook and WhatsApp are also helping us in tapping 'first timers' accessing limited data on their mobile in the initial days and later becoming full-fledged data customers. Hence, our strategy of giving 'a teaser' at low cost to our customers of our superior HSD & 3G network and converting them into higher revenue generating data customers is working well. We, along with these leading brands are introducing attractive buying options including discounts and EMIs schemes to attract large middle class segment to adopt data services and fast internet experience on high speed data networks ." Total data usage on its network has grown 21% quarter-on-quarter to 27,240 terabyte, which is the highest in the industry. With almost 52% of its customer coming from rural India, Vodafone has unfurled its biggest on-ground mobile internet activation initiative - Vodafone Mobile Internet Bus, a 45-day bus trip to educate people with hands-on internet use on smartphones across 130 tier-II and tier III locations. The country's second-largest cellphone company's browsing revenue grew by 50% in FY13 while data now accounts for 7% of its total service revenues. "There is a huge potential to educate customers about the different content and applications which can have a significant bearing on their lives. All of these make data an exciting industry for India," added Mathur. MTS India, too, is going all-out to connect online via mobile and provide innovative data offerings to tier-I, II and rural user base. Leonid Musatov, chief marketing & sales officer, MTS India, said, "We are in the process of launching a series of innovations. Given the size and scale of the opportunity, MTS India is rapidly expanding its high-speed data footprint across its nine circles. The company plans to add over 150 towns to this list over the next couple of months." Virad Kaul, regional business head (East), Aircel, said, "Aircel introduced Pocket Internet pack for Rs 23 to drive internet adoption among first-time internet users. It is developed keeping in mind the two key issues of a first time user - time to learn and the fear of overspending on data."