Indiantelevision.com Team

(23 August 2007 8:00 pm)

BANGALORE: Spice Telecom has launched a special offer for its subscribers in Bangalore wherein it will give a free phone with every new phone connection.

"Every GSM operator in India offers a free connection with a mobile handset, we will give a phone free when a person picks up a Spice connection, and that too at less than Rs 1000 in Karnataka," said Spice Communications (SCL) SVP operations Rakesh Singh.

Spice Telecom has launched three new handsets aimed at the budget segment – A Spice monochrome screen Model 404n model comes bundled with a Rs 999 offer, Rs 1499 fetches a Spice model 535 color screen handset with 1250 minutes free talk time, and Rs 1699 comes with a Spice model 545 with FM color screen handset and 1750 minutes talk time free.

Call charges for all the three offers are at Rs 0.40 within the same network, Rs 0.60 for calls from Spice to other mobiles at and Rs 0.99 for Spice to landline. For SMS and STD/ISD a separate pack has to be procured.

South Indian female actor Tara Veru launched the scheme. An offer on similar lines is likely to be launched in the Punjab circle in which Spice also operates.

SCL plans to beat the mobile growth rate that Karnataka has -the fastest growing market in India currently with a growth rate of around 80 per cent with this offer.

Karnataka also has one of the largest mobile penetrations in India – around 20 per cent. Spice claims that it has a subscriber base of around 1.3 million in Karnataka and overall around 3.3 million in India.

Radio jingles about this offer will commence shortly according to SCL Karnataka Circle Marketing Manager Sowmya. Spice generally uses Radio City and Big FM for Bangalore and pan India it uses All India Radio’s (AIR) FM Rainbow revealed Sowmya. However Spice also uses other stations depending upon the situation, and in the case of the new offering, plans to conduct a study and select radio channels that address the mass media, added Sowmya. Udaya TV is the only channel that beams Spice ads in Karnataka.

The creative duties for Spice Telecom are being handled by JWT and the media buying agency is Mindshare.