Competition in India’s telecom industry is entering a new phase with top players increasingly betting on quality of service and new targeted offerings to retain and acquire customers, as prices have already reached rock bottom levels, experts say.
“The Indian telecom market is shifting towards QoS (quality of service) which will be the key criteria for user retention and acquisition at the same,” said Satyajit Sinha, research analyst at Counterpoint Research.
Service providers are also expected to focus on new technologies like Internet of Things to target niche user base for early adoption, Sinha said. These services may vary from consumer segment to enterprise segment.
While incumbents Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular as well as cash-rich newcomer Reliance Jio Infocomm are expected to focus on quality, experts said smaller telcos — constrained by lack of funds — may continue to play the price game to limit large scale subscriber desertions. Analyst firm EY said tariff wars from now would be relegated to smaller players while top players focus on quality of service, content and apps.
“Customer experience across all touch points need to be improved, from branding to call centres to outlets for self-service,” said Bharat Bhargava, partner, telecom advisory, at EY to an English daily. Couple of months ago, Airtel launched ‘Project Next’ to improve its customer experience under which the country’s largest operator rolled out next-gen Airtel stores that aim to make interactions with customers smoother.
“In the large towns, customers are using the internet for multiple purposes…from entertainment to business related activities to the use of a larger number of applications,” said Avneesh Khosla, associate director – consumer business at Vodafone India.
“In semi-urban and rural India, the usage patterns are very different,” he said. Vodafone, therefore, has plans like SuperHour, SuperNight (unlimited data) for the urban markets, while SuperWeek (unlimited voice) for mass, said Khosla.
By Baishakhi Dutta
