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Tata DoCoMo, the telecom brand of Tata Teleservices, is increasing its investment in 3G in Karnataka and plans to increase its subscriber base by 40 per cent in the circle.
The company has chalked out new schemes and is eying new customers and distributors as it attempts to bolster growth. Talking to Business Line , Ashok Ghose, the newly appointed head of Karnataka and Kerala Circle, said 3G is a clear differentiator in the IT hub of India. Company officials pointed out that it had set up 3,000 telecom sites for 3G last fiscal, in a bid to cash in on the expected demand.
Mounting losses These developments are happening at a time when NTT DoCoMo wants to sell 100 per cent of its shares back to Tata Teleservices and exit Indian telecom market, citing losses of $780 million. The buyback has not yet materialised and is awaiting regulator approval.
In the 2015 financial year, Tata Teleservices reported a net loss of ₹615.25 crore against net loss of ₹560.08 crore during the year ended March 2014. However, sales rose by 7.07 per cent to ₹2,836.69 crore in the 2015 fiscal as against ₹2,649.43 crore during the previous year.
To reverse this trend, the company is looking to increase its post-pay subscriber base and increase its 3G coverage in the rural areas. “We have upgraded 53 new towns in rural Karnataka to 3G and takes over presence to 230 rural locations in the state and have 60,000 retailers in the State,” said Ghose.
Customer base Currently, there are around 341 million customers in rural India, according to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) data. While Tata Teleservices operates in 450,000 towns and villages, it still lags behind Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, both of whom have 108.91 million users and 98.75 million users, as per COAI estimates.
While the company did not disclose the total number of subscribers that it wants to acquire in the State, officials said Tata DoCoMo has around 115 million subscribers or 12.7 per cent of the 900 million cellphone users in the country.
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