The telecom sector witnessed several developments during the year 2016, the key amongst them being Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited’s (RJIL) commercial roll-out of 4G services in September 2016. While RJIL’s entry heated up the competitive landscape and hit incumbent operators’ realisations, it also brought a fresh wave of innovative sales and marketing strategies.

The smartphone market also saw some interesting sales and retail strategies being adopted by players to bring more users on board.

tele.net takes a look at the innovative strategies adopted by operators and handset players in India during 2016…

Operator strategies

Operators adopted a host of innovative strategies, including offering pure-play calling services, data plans, bundled offers, content-based offerings, roaming plans and night-calling plans.

  • Unlimited free calling: RJIL’s strategy to offer unlimited free voice calls was both disruptive and game-changing. Bharti Airtel followed suit and launched the myPlan Infinity service, offering unlimited voice calls along with additional benefits. Meanwhile, Vodafone India launched the Vodafone Red plan, offering unlimited voice calls to its post-paid customers. It also launched unlimited calling packs in the Uttar Pradesh (West) circle. Other operators like Aircel, Tata DOCOMO and Idea Cellular also launched unlimited calling plans. While these operators offered unlimited calls on wireless networks, state-run operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) launched the unlimited free voice calling facility on its landline connections.
  • Innovative data offerings: In a bid to compensate for saturating growth in the voice market, operators introduced a host of data offers for customers. Airtel laun­ched data packs priced between Rs 186 and Rs 3,346, offering greater data usage at night. It also launched special prepaid data recharges for corporate customers, for example, the Happy Hours offer that allowed prepaid customers to get back 50 per cent of the data consumed for all in-app content downloads between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.; an un­limited data pack priced at Rs 1,495; and a free 4G data offer for 90 days in the Delhi circle. Vodafone India also laun­ched data plans, such as the Vodafone U plan, which allows subscri­bers to segment and choose their data consumption pattern (during night and day) and pay accordingly, and a host of prepaid and post-paid data packs in different circles. Idea Cellular, RJIL, Aircel and BSNL also launched several data plans for their post-paid and prepaid customers. How­ever, in a bid to encourage app-based calling, Reliance Communi­cations (RCOM) launched the “call drops se chutkara” data plan priced at Re 1 for its customers in Delhi-NCR. The plan offers 7 MB of data per day, which can be used for browsing and/or data calling.
  • Bundled offers: Some operators adopted a strategy to provide bundled offers in order to enhance their subscriber base. Bundled offers present a win-win situation for all industry stakeholders – operators, handset vendors and custo­mers.  RJIL was at the forefront in this area. It entered into partnerships with more than 20 handset vendors including Sam­sung, Gionee, Lava, Intex, Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo, to extend its free voice and data offer to customers purchasing these smartphones. Other operators in­clu­ding Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular also launched bundled offers with premium and non-premium handsets for their post-paid as well as prepaid subscribers.
  • Content-based offerings: Apart from offering traditional vanilla voice and data packs, operators also introduced a plethora of content-based offerings in 2016. Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, RCOM, Aircel and Mahanagar Telephone Ni­gam Limited (MTNL) laun­ched various content-based services/applications, whi­ch allowed users to download videos and music, either free of charge or at a minimal cost. RJIL launched a series of content-based applications even before laun­ching its commercial services. These inc­lud­ed applications like JioPlay, Jio­Mags, JioOnDemand and JioBeats which offer­ed music and videos. In addition, BSNL partnered with Tata Sky to offer the video-on-demand service to its users and MTNL partnered with Hun-gama to offer on-demand entertainment services. Vodafone partnered with Eros Inter­national for offering its content on the MyVodafone application.
  • Night calling plans: Operators such as Aircel and Telenor India launched night calling packs in some circles. While the plans launched by Aircel offered discounted voice tariffs during night hours, Telenor India’s offering included unlimited night calls on its network from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m.
  • Roaming plans: In a bid to encourage calls on national roaming, Vodafone In­dia made incoming calls free on national roaming for all its customers. To cater to customers travelling abroad frequently, Vodafone India and Bharti Air­tel launch­ed new international roam­­­ing packs. While Airtel offered free incoming calls and free calling minutes and text messages with up to 30 days validity, Voda­fone India launched the IROAMDAILY plan, which offered free incoming calls to users.

Operators also focused on expanding their retail footprint. Bharti Airtel, Voda­fone India, Idea Cellular, Telenor In­d­ia and RCOM made an effort to enhance their off­­line presence. These operators invested in physical retail stores to en­able customers to visit a store for the first-time experience, which is particularly req­uir­ed in Tier II and Tier III cities. Besides strengthening the operator’s sales and distribution activity in Tier II and Tier III cities, these stores were instrumental in helping operators make inroads into rural areas.

Handset vendor strategies

Handset manufacturers resorted to a variety of innovative strategies, including providing additional features in smartphones and launching new smartphone accessories, coming up with new retail strategies and introducing low-cost 4G smartphones.

  • Features: With the intention of enhancing the security and privacy aspects of smartphones, some handset manufacturers introduced fingerprint sensors and iris scanners in the smartphones they launched in 2016. Although fingerprint sensors and iris scanners were offered by some handset manufacturers in the past, they were restricted to only flagship or high-end handsets. The notable feature about the year 2016 was the introduction of these features in most of the smartphone launches in the sub-Rs 15,000 category. Manufacturers such as Lenovo, Panasonic, Xiaomi, ZTE, Coolpad and LeEco have been at the forefront in introducing fingerprint sensors in their smartphones. Iris scanners were introduced by China-based handset manufacturer, TCL Corporation and itel mobile in their handsets launched in the sub-Rs 10,000 smartphone category.
  • Enhanced battery life: Most handset vendors focused on enhancing the battery life of their smartphones. To this end, the year 2016 witnessed a switch from 2,500 mAh batteries to batteries with more than 3,000 mAh power. Most of the smartphones launched by Asus, Xiaomi, Leno­vo, Vivo, Samsung, Motorola and Oppo were equipped with batteries with 3,000 mAh to 5,000 mAh power.
  • Innovative accessories: Karbonn Mobiles, Xiaomi and Lenovo were a part of the lea­gue of manufacturers introducing smartphone accessories, as they launched their virtual reality (VR) headsets in India. VR headsets enhance the user exp­erience while viewing videos and movies. Karbonn also offered VR glasses with its Karbonn Quattro L52 and Titanium Mach Six smartphones, with an aim to extend the VR technology to consumers purchasing smartphones in the sub-Rs 10,000 category. Meanwhile, Motorola launched Moto Mods with its Moto Z and Moto Z Play smartphones. These are additional devices that can be connected to the smartphone to transform it into a super-zoom camera, a boombox, a projector or a battery powerhouse.
  • Offline retail channels: Smartphone manufacturers focused on multi-channel availability of handsets. To this end, Asus made its smartphones available not only at Asus exclusive stores but also at all leading retail stores. Meanwhile, Oppo announced its plans to set up around 200 new service centres in India. Coolpad, which had only an online presence in the country until recently, went the offline route too. It launched its Note 3S smartphone in offline stores. The vendor also announced its plans to cover more than 10 states with 5,000 core shops and 10,000 retail shops by 2017.
  • Low-cost 4G handsets: Although 4G-enabled smartphones have been available in the past, these would cost Rs 15,000 and above. However, to tap the growing 4G market, a number of handset manufacturers launched more affor­dable 4G handsets, priced at as low as Rs 3,000. This was done with the aim of extending 4G services to the youth and the rural population, which is typically averse to buying expensive smartphones. Reliance Retail was at the forefront in this regard. It launched its Lyf series of 4G-enabled handsets starting at Rs 2,999. Mean­while, Karbonn, Videocon, Swipe Tech­no­logies and Sam­­sung also launched 4G-enabled hand­sets in the sub-Rs 5,000 smartphone category.

Kuhu Singh