Tariff War: Idea Cellular Also Offers Unlimited Voice Calls to Stay Competitive

[Nandan Jha]

Staying competitive with Reliance Jio and Airtel, India’s third largest telecom operator Idea Cellular has announced free call schemes. Priced at ₹148 and ₹348, these prepaid packs provide unlimited voice calls to anywhere in India bundled with data.

Free Voice Calling Tariff War:

The Idea prepaid packs resemble Airtel twin packs priced at ₹145 and ₹345 respectively. With ₹148 Idea prepaid pack, the subscribers can make local and STD calls only on company’s own network. While the higher ₹348 Idea pack offers unlimited voice calls (local and STD) to any network across the country. It is to be noted that the pricing of prepaid packs may slightly differ from circle to circle but have a validity of 28 days.

Addressing the launch of bucket packs, Mr. Sashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer, Idea Cellular, said: “As people in India get into the holiday mode, they will tend to stay better connected with their loved ones. Providing them with seamless connectivity at an affordable price point, we have launched these exciting voice packs that enable Idea prepaid users to make unlimited voice calls across the country. We hope they make the best out of this proposition.”

Benefits of Idea ₹148 Pack:

The Idea Cellular subscribers can make free local and STD Idea-to-Idea calls across India. Along with free voice calls, a bundled 50MB of data is provided. Customers with 4G enabled smartphones will get 300MB of 4G data along with free voice calling benefit.

Benefits of Idea ₹348 Pack:

This higher value pack offers free local and STD calls across all networks in the country with 50MB data. However, if the customer holds a 4G enabled handset then 1GB of data will be credited along with free voice calling benefit. As said earlier, both the packs will have a validity of 28 days.

Survival for the Fittest:

Ever since the launch of Reliance Jio, the telecom operators are in jitters and have been strained to remain in the race. Undoubtedly, the consumer is the king and this is for the first time that telecom tariff plans are within the reach of the average customer. Though the prepaid customers account for more than 90% of India’s total mobile subscribers, it generates only 65-70% of the overall revenue of the telecom operators.

It is clearly evident that the incumbent players are trying to protect their lower revenue generating but high volume consumer base. However, it’s sad to acknowledge that Idea Cellular is just copy pasting Bharti Airtel’s plan and has nothing to innovate for its 186 million subscribers.