BSNL has also learnt that channel community holds the key to making sure that its products and services are available across the length and breadth of India. "At present, we are aiming to catch up with our recent drop in marketshare. To ensure our availability throughout the country, we have roped in post offices and PCO booths to mark our presence felt. Besides this, we have also involved ourselves in many bundling initiatives in partnership with the major handset vendors. Our motive is to have in place the coverage in sync with the market size," informed MSS Rao, Deputy DG—Marketing, BSNL.
For Tata Teleservices, the channel serves as a source of valuable information on the market, prevailing competitive environment and consumer behavior/response to products. Sukumar Kameswaran, VP—Retail, Tata Teleservices explained, "For a company that captures a million subscribers every month, the channel plays an important and crucial role in reaching out to customers by making products available, providing customer care touch points, bill collection services, sales of recharge options, etc. We have a variety of products therefore, we operate through our Exclusive Stores, Modern Trade Counters, Direct Sales Agents, Direct Sales Teams, Distributors and Multi-branded Retail Counters."
A late entrant into the Indian telecom turf, Virgin Mobile is confident about increasing its profitability considerably in the coming months. "We started our operations in the country just four months back, and since then we have been growing considerably. Today, we are present in 1,000 modern retail outlets, including The Mobile Store, Hotspot, RPG Cellucom, Univercell, Croma, Convergem and Sangeetha to name a few. With this footprint, Virgin Mobile will cover approximately 60 percent of the urban youth market by end of this year," informed P Madhvan, Chief Sales and Distribution Officer, Virgin Mobile, India.
Navi Mumbai-based Reliance follows a different strategy altogether to expand into various geographies. An official spokesperson from Reliance revealed, "We have various mix of channels as per the requirement of the geography and demography of the locations. We have 242 Reliance World outlets spread across 105 cities in India, and this number would be upgraded as the need for the same arises. Reliance Communications retail channels cater to over 100 million subscribers spread across all group companies."