80. Aircel

Aircel, the Sivasankaran promoted company providing cellular services in
Tamil Nadu, has been the most aggressive service provider in the country. In
fact, in a span of two years of operation, it has not only been able to make
remarkable progress, but has also become the largest service provider in the
state beating BPL, which has been in operation for at least four years now.
During 2000-01, it notched up a subscriber base of 1,19,989 growing by about
79,750 subscribers and earned an estimated revenue of Rs 89.62 crore.

Aircel has, in fact, won the battle of subscribers by aggressive tariffs. It
targeted the tea-shop owners, auto drivers, cable TV operators. It was the first
cellular operator in the country to introduce a three-minute pulse. It also
introduced competitive pricing. It came up with very low-priced tariff plans. It
offered Rs 2 per minute kind of charges and free incoming calls and introduced
another airtime free plan for corporates if they procured fifty cellphones. It
also introduced mobile banking, e-mail services, access to stock market
quotations and other services. The success has been because it had sufficient
capacity to cater to on its exchanges. For further consolidation, the company is
also interested in biding for the fourth license in the Chennai circle. This, it
thinks, will bring synergy in its operations across the entire state and is now
looking at the second round of network expansion.