Uninor, one of the telecom service providers operating in India is betting high on innovations to boost its customer base across those cities it renders its services.
Earlier, the teleco made milkmen and auto-rickshaw drivers as sellers of its SIM cards in couple of its circles. Now, Uninor has come up with shop on wheels with the concept called Ghumketu that is a part of the initiative dubbed ‘Blue Petal’. This initiative will go official in the Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh West circles and it aims at directly reaching the potential consumers in those circles that lack a distribution network.
Ghumketus are mobile POS (Point of Sale) and they are used in different forms such as bikes or auto-rickshaws in the aforementioned circles. These POS bikes will have boxes attached to them along with batteries connecting them to printing and photocopying machines and the bikers will have a laptop. On the other hand, the open auto-rickshaws with six-seater facility in the Gujarat circle are named Chhaka and they will carry all the necessary equipment’s.
The mobile POS points on wheels will help Uninor to interact directly with its subscribers as it is getting tough for them to come out from their workplace to complete all the required processes.
Especially, the telecom service provider is targeting hugely at the women and street vendors from its new imitative as 10 percent subscribers in the Gujarat circle are women. And with this imitative, the teleco can gain more women subscribers in the same network.
Apart from aiming to acquire some customers, Uninor is also planning to spread awareness about basic telephony such as using mobile phones and mobile internet from its new imitative. As revealed by the K C Narendran, Senior Vice President, Circle Business Head, UP – West, Uninor, the SMS penetration in this circle is 26 percent and the use of mobile internet stands at 27 percent.
By adopting new methods, Uninor has managed to achieve an increase in the customer acquisition by 8 percent with the Ghumketu’s introduction in Western Uttar Pradesh. Besides providing new SIM cards, the imitative all sells recharges and assists in the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) process as well.
The UP-West circle contributes 16 to 17 percent of Uninor’s revenues and the teleco is in plans to expand its network by another 30 percent this year in this circle. This expansion would mostly be in the suburban regions, claimed the representative.
