Vodafone India to focus on data revenue growth, expanding M-Pesa service

"Our priority is that. We will continue to focus on growing our data as a revenue stream and getting more and more users both on 2G and 3G platform. We will also make a foray into mobile commerce through M-Pesa...," Vodafone South Ltd Business Head-Tamil Nadu Apoorva Mehrotra told reporters in Chennai.

The company, as part of tapping the 65 percent of users who access the Internet through mobile phone, has also launched the Internet bus initiative in Tier II and III cities, he said.

"Out of the 1.3 crore subscribers, 65 percent only right now have mobile Internet enabled phone. Out of the 65 percent, only 40 percent are using data... So there is a large gap between people who can use data but are not using right now. That is where the Internet bus and the exclusive retail footprint we have help us..." he said.

Noting that the company has been working on the "educate, engage and experience" concept, he said the company has been witnessing 60,000 new people as first time data users.

"The touch points we have are becoming very effective as customers who are first time users of data, come and get any information on issues of data, whether email can be configured on a phone and things like that..", he said.

To a query, Mehrotra declined to elaborate about the 'M-Pesa' service that the company was expected to launch.

Mehrotra added the company had been growing at 100 percent year-on-year (in terms of subscriber base) while the revenues were growing at 10 percent.