Even as the heavens open up, Reliance Infocomm’s bounty has already begun flowing onto the streets. Twenty-year-old Sushil Kumar, who owns a makeshift store for basic mobile accessories at Kamla Mills compound in central Mumbai, just outside the buzzing Reliance Mobile office, has been doing frenetic business since July 2. He says he’s sold more than 5,000 mobile covers in a day. And what’s caused this upsurge? ‘‘Yeh sab Reliance ke Monsoon Hungama offer ke karan hua,’’ he shoots with a grin.Talk timeFive lakh people all over the country have joined Kumar in celebrating a hungama that’s making everyone sit up and take notice. Throngs have braved the wet weather and gathered for a rain dance with Reliance—after all it’s hard to resist a multimedia mobile phone and connection for an unbelievable Rs 501!‘‘It’s the extremely low entry cost that compelled people to buy our mobiles,’’ says a co-ordinator for Mumbai circle operations, explaining why more than five lakh customers grabbed the offer in the space of a working week. Within the Mumbai circle itself, there were more than 10,000 customers every day in the 20-odd Reliance outlets during that period. Remarkable, considering that India’s financial capital is also among its most saturated cellphone markets.‘‘On the first day itself some two and a half lakh people got connected,’’ says an official.Yet it was only a few months ago that Reliance Infocomm seemed plagued with a wide range of problems, including heat-emitting handsets, complaints of poor connectivity, conflicts with regulators and a controversial dealership model.Reliance has countered with an aggressive pricing model—a strategy that seems to have worked. ‘‘This is just an extension of the earlier offer, we have only broad-based the entry level by reducing the cost from the original Rs 3,000 to just Rs 501,’’ says the company’s official spokesperson. The payment option allows customers to pick from any of the existing tariff plans including the best value for money Dhirubhai Ambani Pioneer Offer (DAPO), Budget 149 and Budget 249.With such a low entry barrier, the company has already become the fourth largest player around. “It’s simple economies of scale,” says a senior Reliance official. “Given the immensity of the venture our project, organisers were able to put together plans at highly competitive rates. Additionally, Reliance is so diversified that we know how and where to get critical inputs like PVC in a cost-effective manner.”But the demand so far has come mostly from the metros and the Sec ‘A’ and ‘B’ class cities. “We have deep pockets and the Tatas are the only competitors who can raise the the capital needed to compete with us on price,” says the senior Reliance official. “Yet we’re not worried.Tata will still have to deal with the issues that crop up at the launch. We’re at least three years ahead.”The only other player that Reliance needs to think about at the moment is TATA Teleservices Limited (TTSL) in Delhi. TTSL under the brand name Tata Indicom, operates in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi, and in some parts of Maharashtra. The company has a base of over 6,50,000 subscribers, with Delhi having more than 90,000. They have come up with the 999 offer in June which allowed the customer to get a CDMA handset at an initial cost of just Rs 999 and a very low monthly rental of Rs 200. The battle for customers may have been won by Reliance in Delhi as of now, but with the Tatas planning to enter Mumbai in early August, things could look a little different. While many GSM operators refuse to comment on the present situation, most say they have adopted a wait-and-watch policy. As far as other WiLL operators are concerned, most have decide to keep mum at the moment. ‘‘We believe in consistency and will act according to the demands of the situation,’’ said a WiLL operator when asked about the ‘Hungama’ offer.But what about Reliance’s infrastructure load? The company, which has already dug in 60,000 km of cable spread across 670 cities, seems to have covered that aspect too. Its 2,100 seater call centre in Navi Mumbai takes care of all calls on the national network. The company is betting on the fact that at a given peak hour, the call centre has successfully handled about 5.6 crore calls So any increase in that number can be handled. “Our back-end was planned for much larger capacities,” says the senior official, adding, “We’ve always expected to be the market leaders.”Network errorYet the optimism at Reliance Infocomm’s headquarters doesn’t seem to have solved all the existing customer woes. Many subscribers say their connectivity problems continue. Points out 55-year-old Uttam Chand Jain, a businessman from Bhuleshwar in South Mumbai, ‘‘I have always had connectivity problem with the set, so now I use a GSM set for myself, but I’m getting two new Reliance sets for my employees so that I can just track them.’’ Says 40-year-old Sumit Sharma, a senior executive with a private firm in Lower Parel in central Mumbai, ‘‘I want a Reliance mobile only for use at home, there are some problems with getting connected in certain areas.’’ With load increasing on the system, some customers may have expressed wariness about the future, but that has not stopped them from getting a Reliance set. At the outlets, the crowds have thinned now, but that, explains a company official, is because new customers now have to produce original documents at the time of purchase. They will also have to wait until their residence address is verified to get the handsets. But the hungama created by Reliance, won’t settle in a hurry. In a highly volume-driven market, they’ve managed to get a large share of the pie. Now all they have to do is hold on to it.
