Tata DOCOMO enters CDMA space; Unveils growth strategy to capture emerging telecom opportunities

Tata Teleservices Limited has adopted a future-facing strategic approach to ring in the next growth wave in the Company, unveiling an integrated technology-agnostic structure to leverage emerging market opportunities. The Company will leverage its wide range of products and services and reach out to customers with one common brand”Tata DOCOMO”cutting across the CDMA and GSM platforms. With this move, brand Tata DOCOMO now moves into the CDMA space, and all Tata Indicom customers shall be migrated to Tata DOCOMO from tomorrow.

Tata DOCOMO believes that phones are not just for talking and the new strategic approach will bring in the full might of TTL's telecom experience to customers through an elevation in the promise from "only telecom' to seamless Access, relevant Content and differentiated Solutions. The Company's new portfolio of products, applications and solutions will allow consumers to access cutting-edge voice and data services, enjoy content of their choice, and avail of a host of solutions, ranging from mere conveniences to life- and lifestyle-assistance services. As part of the new strategy, TTL is integrating the many different market opportunities and empowering the customer”with a single-point brand interface for a seamless user experience. The company has consolidated all organizational assets”spectrum, retail touch-points, digital footprint and consumer franchises across technology platforms under a single brand, Tata DOCOMO.

"These are exciting times at TTL and mark the Company's evolution from being just an access provider to a multi-platform telecom applications and solutions organization, with one single brand”Tata DOCOMO”for customer connect, ease and delight. This is the birth of Telecom 2.0," Deepak Gulati, Executive President, Mobility Business, Tata Teleservices Limited, said. "Our new strategy will unify our brands and unlock the synergies across the CDMA, GSM & 3G platforms. We are pleased to welcome our Tata Indicom customers into the Tata DOCOMO family, offering them a new world of telecom and lifestyle-impacting experiences," he added.

"Our new business approach gives TTL new strategic direction in the Access, Content and Solutions spaces, enabling the Company to offer compelling propositions to customers in a market that has been witnessing far-reaching changes in terms of usage trends and customer preferences. The growth of the Internet usage on phones, the arrival of Smartphones, the explosion of social-networking and the evolution of the Indian consumer”all have led to a fundamental shift in the role of the mobile phone in everyone's life. We believe the phone is no longer just for talking; it holds the potential to impact lifestyles, even transform lives," S Ramakrishna, TTL's Chief Operating Officer in Andhra Pradesh, said.

The Company is planning significant investments to upgrade its CDMA network to deepen and widen the existing footprint.

TTL has also put in place a new integrated go-to-market approach”across the sales, marketing and customer service domains. For instance, the Company's 3,000-plus-strong CDMA retail footprint will now become accessible for GSM as well, and vice versa; Tata Photon's strong post-pay channel will become an asset for GSM; GSM's strong digital marketing footprint will become a channel for Tata Photon, and so on”this is in line with the Company's stated objective of streamlining operations and creating a strong consumer-facing organization. This industry-best strength on the retail front will enable the Company to reach out to customers of all product lines through a widespread and common interface.

Tata Teleservices Limited also unveiled Photon Max on Tata DOCOMO, the latest addition to its best-selling Photon family of high-speed mobile broadband access products on the CDMA platform, which works on the REV.B platform and offers extremely fast surfing speeds. The move is a logical next step for TTL, whose market leading products and solutions have seen it emerge as the undisputed leader in the broadband access and Enterprise segments. At the time of launch itself, Tata Photon Max is available in five metropolitan cites”Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai, with another 22 key cities across the country set to be mapped by the end of the year.

Photon Max is available to consumers under two schemes. In one, the product is being launched at an introductory price of Rs 1,999, with Rs 750 to be paid as monthly rentals, with 1.5 GB of data usage coming free. Additional data usage will be billed at Re 0.50 per MB. In a second bundled offer, the customer will pay Rs 3,999 upfront and get the device and 1 GB of data usage per month free for five months. Any usage beyond 1 GB per month will be billed at Re 0.50 per MB.

The migration of services to the unified Tata Docomo brand will happen in Delhi-NCR at a later date. This will not impact TTL's Indicom, Photon and Walky consumers in Delhi as they will continue to get the same quality of service as in the past.