The Hindu Business Line : Datacom hires Interbrand to pick mobile service brand name

Datacom is in discussion with infrastructure companies, including Indus Tower, a tower company owned by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, for network sharing deal.

Thomas K. Thomas

New Delhi, Aug. 16 Videocon-backed telecom company Datacom has hired global brand consultancy firm Interbrand to finalise the brand name under which the firm will roll out its mobile services. Interbrand has managed international brands including Samsung, Philips, Suzuki Motors and Xerox.

“It will take about two months for us to finalise the brand for our mobile services. We will be the first Indian telecom company which will have a separate brand for its services as most of the existing players make no distinction between the name of the company and the brand. We want to offer services under a name that will stand for a set of values and create a linkage with what we stand for,” Mr Ravi Sharma, CEO, Datacom told Business Line.

Datacom is among the five new players which had recently been given pan-Indian telecom licences. The company plans to launch its mobile services first in Tamil Nadu by the end of the year. Though Datacom has pan-Indian licences, the Government has allocated spectrum in five circles only. “We hope to get the spectrum for the remaining circles soon. Our plan is to become a nationwide player by the end of 2009. For this we are investing close to Rs 13,000 crore in rolling out infrastructure that will support 70 million subscribers,” Mr Sharma said.

Datacom is in discussion with infrastructure companies, including Indus Tower, a tower company owned by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, for network sharing deal. Mr Sharma said that the deal will be finalised within two weeks.

Divest stake

The company is also looking to divest equity stake to a strategic partner. A decision is likely to be announced by October. “We have the option of striking a deal with a strategic partner by October or push that decision to some time next year after we roll out some of the network. It depends on the valuations. However having a strategic partner will be good for a possible foray into 3G mobile services,” Mr Sharma said.

He said that new cellular operators like Datacom will not be hard pressed to get subscribers since every year close to 50 million existing mobile users change their operator. “We are looking at a market potential of 300 million subscribers. Once mobile number portability is introduced it will enable users to change their operator without having to give up the mobile number. Already existing operators are facing a churn of around 3.5 per cent a month. There is a huge potential there for new players,” he said.

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