The Hindu Business Line : Reliance Info lowers price barrier on handset schemes

WITHIN two months of the launch of its pre-paid offer, Reliance Infocomm has lowered the price barrier of a couple of handset schemes and has launched a new scheme.

"Based on the response of our data-enabled handsets, we have decided to lower the price barrier of a couple of them," Reliance Infocomm' president for wireless products and services, Mr S.P. Shukla told Business Line.

Mr Shukla said the Nokia 2280 handset will now be priced at Rs 2,999 with a pre-loaded voucher of Rs 324. The earlier handset scheme was priced at Rs 6,500 and came along with 20 free vouchers of Rs 324 each and it has now been withdrawn.

The subscribers get free access to Internet-based service, R-World and Internet service provider, R-Connect. Subscribers to this handset scheme cannot however, download any video clips.

The second handset, which came bundled with LG 2030, has now been priced at Rs 3,499 with a pre-loaded free voucher of Rs 324.

The earlier handset was priced at Rs 6,500 with 20 free vouchers of Rs 324 each and it has now been withdrawn. In this handset scheme, subscribers can download video clips through R-World.

Reliance Infocomm has also introduced another handset scheme, which is priced at Rs 3,499, and comes with LG-2230 handset and a pre-loaded voucher of Rs 324. The company currently has a total of six handset schemes. "These new handset schemes should see a surge in our subscriber base," Mr Shukla said.

The tariffs for all the schemes however, remain unaltered.

Mr Shukla had earlier said the pre-paid subscriber base of Reliance Infocomm is set to cross the one million mark soon. He said the current total subscriber base of Reliance Infocomm is around seven million though the pre-paid subscriber base is expected to overtake the post-paid base within this year itself.

Unlike GSM operators whose subscriber base is heavily tilted towards pre-paid, Reliance base will be more balanced. He said the post-paid, pre-paid ratio would be more balanced compared with that of GSM operators' subscriber base.

Mr Shukla said as Reliance had extended data-rich handsets to even pre-paid subscribers, it had been able to push sales faster. However, the Internet-based R-World, which offers live video of news and games, is expected to go pay from July 1. R-World gets nearly 40 million hits every day.

Recently, the company withdrew the Monsoon Hangama scheme, introduced in July 2003, and the Dhirubhai Ambani Pioneer Offer (DAPO), which was launched along with Reliance IndiaMobile service. The DAPO scheme put Reliance Infocomm on the fast track ,picking up a few million subscribers within a year of its launch.