Airtel to introduce India calling cards in 9 countries
Tuesday, 06 February 2007, 18:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: NRI populations can look forward to lapping up Bharti Airtel;s latest offering: the company is all set to launch it's virtual calling cards in nine countries: all of which have large NRI populations. The cards will bring down the costs of calling India by as much as 40 percent. The move is expected to trigger off a fresh tariff war in the respective countries. The company's launch of the calling card in the US in December; the first of the series of such launches is a case in point; its offering of 7.9 cents per minute in the US resulted in AT&T slashing the tariffs for its India 60 Plus calling card from $14.99 per month (around 25 cents a minute) to $11.99 per month (around 20 cents a minute) for 60 minutes talk time to India. Airtel president Manoj Kohli told Economic Times, which reported the development, "In 2007-08, we will extend this service to the top 10 countries in terms of the NRI population. These include Canada, the UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in West Asia." The company's move into this segment is considered as a move to tap into a popularity that calling cards enjoy in these countries. For example, as per industry estimates, the outgoing traffic from the US to India is about 450 million minutes per month, of which about 200 million minutes are through calling cards. Also, close to 80 percent of the incoming calls to India are made from the top 10 NRI countries. Kohli further told ET that the company was aiming to be a major player in the global enterprise segment. Towards this end, recently, it hired David Nishball - who was formerly heading France Telecom's APAC operations - to head the enterprise segment. Bharti had also bought out Singtel?s stake in i2i submarine cable connecting Chennai to Singapore. "This acquisition is only the start of a journey - we are looking at having a global redundant cable network," said Kohli. However, he refused to specify if the telecom operator would be acquiring, building or joining other cable consortiums in setting up new undersea links. "We are considering all options," was the only reply Kohli came up with.
Source: IANS
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