MTS India: We are still in customer acquisition mode

Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL), which provides telecom services under the MTS brand, said on monday that it is still in the customer acquisition mode in both voice and data segments.

"We are still in the customer acquisition mode in both voice and data," SSTL West Bengal COO Sandeep Marwaha said on the sidelines of launch of Rs. 1699 dual technology CDMA+GSM handset in the market bundled with voice calling benefits.

MTS India launched its operation in March 2009 and was trying to acquire customers with low cost model. MTS India was only CDMA based single technology telecom company which has secured spectrum in the 800MHz band in March for eight regions in India after the licences were cancelled by court during spectrum scam.

Marwaha said such handsets will help the company to acquire GSM customers planning to take a benefit of cheaper voice product without moving out of existing connection.

Our average voice tariff had remained flat since last one year as compared to 15-25 percent rise in voice tariffs by GSM players in the market, SSTL, regional head marketing, Pallab Majumdar said.

He said despite its voice ARPU (average realisation per unit) in voice was Rs. 100 and despite this their revenue from just data (dongle) was 30 percent of total revenue.

The company has about 10 million customers across the country and out of which 2.8 million would be in West Bengal.

Marwaha said company was in talks with several handset makers to launch CDMA based handsets in the market with a bigger distribution network.

"In the August-December quarter there will be series of handset launches for mass and mid-mass segment," he said.

He also said the licencing issue had held back nationwide rollout of EVDO (Enhanced Voice-Data Optimised) Rev B network but now it was reviving the same.

Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd (SSTL) is a venture, involving equity participation by Sistema JSFC of Russia, the Russian Federation and the Shyam Group of India. Sistema is the majority shareholder in the company.