Tata Docomo Ltd is an Indian mobile network operator, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Teleservices, and was founded on November 2008 as a joint venture between Tata and NTT DoCoMo. It is the country's eighth largest operator in terms of subscribers (including both GSM and CDMA).
Video Tata DoCoMo
History
Tata Docomo is part of the Indian conglomerate Tata Group. The company received the license to operate GSM services in nineteen telecom circles and was allotted spectrum in eighteen of these circles and launched GSM services on 24 June 2009. It began operations first in South India and currently operates GSM services in eighteen of twenty two telecom circles. It has licences to operate in Delhi but has not been allocated spectrum from the Government. Docomo provides services throughout India. Tata DOCOMO offers both prepaid and postpaid cellular phone services. It has become very popular with its one-second pulse especially in semi-urban and rural areas. On 12 October 2017 Tata Docomo was acquired by Bharti Airtel and is subject to regulatory obligations.
In November 2008, NTT Docomo invested INR12,740 crore (equivalent to INR220 billion or US$3.5 billion in 2016) in Tata Teleservices, at INR117 (equivalent to INR210 or US$3.20 in 2016) a share for a 26.5% stake in the latter. DoCoMo, TTSL and Tata Sons had in March 2009 signed shareholder agreement for the business alliance. In March 2009, DoCoMo acquired a 27.31% in Tata Teleservices for Rs 12,924 crore and 20.25% in Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd, the listed arm of TTSL, for INR949 crore. Overall, DoCoMo holds 26.5% in Tata Teleservices.
On 5 November 2010, Tata DOCOMO became the first private sector telecom company to launch 3G services in India. Tata DOCOMO had about 49.0 million users at the end of March 2017.
In April 2011, Tata DOCOMO signed Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor as its brand ambassador on a three-year contract, now the contract is expired. For the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, actors Vijay and Ram Charan Teja are the brand ambassadors respectively.
Virgin Mobile India
Virgin Mobile India Limited was a cellular telephone service provider company, operated as a joint venture between Tata Teleservices and Richard Branson's Virgin Group. The company used Tata's CDMA and GSM networks to offer its services under the brand name Virgin Mobile, and also started GSM services in some states. "Virgin Mobile" branded services were offered to Indian consumers by Tata Teleservices through a brand franchise with Virgin Mobile. Virgin Mobile India provided Tata Teleservices with experience and expertise in designing, marketing and servicing of "Virgin Mobile" branded products for the youth segment. Virgin Mobile marketed prepaid and postpaid on both GSM as well as CDMA, and also offered wireless services under the brand name Datamax.
Virgin Mobile was India's first national youth-focused mobile service, with over 45,00,000 outlets reaching over 3,20,00000 cities, towns and villages across India.
It was also ranked as the No. 1 for customer satisfaction within the first year of its launch with an overall score of over 95%. It was judged the "Buzziest Brands of 2009" i.e. the most searched for brands by surfers, in a survey carried out by a leading online portal in India.
Marketing
Virgin Mobile refreshed its campaign by starting a channel on YouTube called indianpangaleague. Since the inception of the campaign, YouTube has logged over 610,975 views, around 20,893 channel views and more than 300 subscribers. It signed on actor Ranbir Kapoor as its brand ambassador. It also came up with a "Yoyo tariff" which allowed friends to keep calls between them free by getting INR0.1 for incoming and paying INR0.1 for outgoing. The campaign was created by Bates 141. It initially gained a huge response as Virgin was the only mobile service provider who paid for incoming calls.
In the late 2009 Virgin Mobile India also started relying on manned kiosks as the alternate channels for sales and branding. It was their endeavour to improve their customer service and to thus attract more customers to know Virgin Mobile's latest offers and deals. Thus, Virgin Mobile India chose to pilot unmanned kiosks and evaluate the success of the pilot by saving costs and attract subscribers to interact with Virgin Mobile applications, buy recharge coupons, download freebies and paid value added services (VAS) content like wallpaper and ringtones. Virgin mobile India provide only 2G data with EDGE services.
Rebranding
On 20 October 2011, the Tata Group brought its brands - Indicom (CDMA), Tata Docomo (GSM), Walky (Fixed Wireless Phone), Photon, INTERNET - under the Tata DOCOMO name. All subscribers to these services were migrated to the Docomo brand on 20 October 2011. In 2015, Virgin Mobile - the other brand under Tata Group was also merged with Tata Docomo. T24 Mobile is not part of the rebranding and continue to retain their names.
NTT DOCOMO Exit
According to the agreement between the Tata Group and NTT DoCoMo, the latter had the right to sell its stake if Tata Docomo missed performance targets, with Tata getting right of first refusal. On 25 April 2014, NTT Docomo had announced that they would sell all of their shares in Tata DoCoMo and exit the Indian telecom industry as they had incurred a total loss of $1.3 billion. Under the joint venture agreement between the two groups, NTT Docomo would either increase its stake from 26.5% to 51%, or sell all of its shares, depending on the performance of Tata Docomo in the Indian market.
Since Tata was unable to find a buyer for the shares, they sought the approval of the RBI, in November 2014, to buy back the shares from NTT Docomo for $1.1 billion (at INR58.045 per share), half the price paid by them in 2009. The RBI had approved the deal in January 2015, but however, went back on their decision and rejected the deal in March 2015, citing FEMA regulations. Following the RBI decision, the Tata Group offered to purchase Docomo's stake at INR23.34 a share on the basis of a fair market value determined on 30 June 2014 by PwC. NTT Docomo then moved the London Court of International Arbitration seeking a valuation of INR58 a share.
On 28 February 2017, Tata and NTT Docomo resolved their dispute, after the former announced that it would pay the latter US$1.18 billion in exchange for NTT Docomo's shares in the joint venture. On 31st October, $1.27 billion was paid to NTT Docomo by Tata Sons, thus ending the dispute.
Maps Tata DoCoMo
Network
Tata DOCOMO Ltd operates in 19 telecom circles and offers services on GSM platforms. Mobile services are available in the following telecom circles: With effect from 17 June 2013, it does not offer postpaid services, on both CDMA and GSM, in Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and West Bengal (except Kolkata).
3G
On 19 May 2010, the 3G spectrum auction in India ended. Tata DOCOMO Ltd paid INR5864.29 crores for spectrum in 10 circles. These circles obtained 3G licences and they are Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra & Goa, Punjab, , Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh (West).
On 5 November 2010, Tata DOCOMO Ltd became the first private sector telecom company (third overall) to launch 3G services in India, with a 20 city launch. On July 19, 2011, Docomo and Aircel entered into a roaming agreement for 3G services to jointly roll out 3G networks in the three circles where they both have coverage (Karnataka, Kerala, and Punjab). On December 14, 2011, Docomo ended its agreement with Aircel. Both operators ended the deal after the Department of Telecom said that such 3G arrangements were illegal, as the pacts violate licence terms and conditions. Tata DOCOMO and Aircel currently have bilateral roaming agreements to allow their subscribers to seamlessly use 3G on roaming. Tata Docomo Ltd customers use its GSM's 3G network when they are on roaming in Delhi.
Tata DOCOMO had about 1.5 million 3G subscribers as of May 2011.
Awards and recognition
Tata DOCOMO was ranked 64th among India's most trusted brands according to The Brand Trust Report - 2012, a study conducted by Trust Research Advisory (TRA). In The Brand Trust Report - 2013, Tata DOCOMO was ranked 117th among India's most trusted brands while according to The Brand Trust Report - 2014, Tata DOCOMO was ranked 261st among India's most trusted brands.
References
External links
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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