Reliance Communications is going to invade GSM handset retailing
Reliance Communications is going to invade GSM handset retailing
Anil Ambani promoted Reliance Communications is going to take the plunge in retailing GSM handsets. The company has already carved a niche in selling the CDMA handsets and is the second largest handset distributor selling over 15-16 million CDMA handsets last year. The company introduced the cheapest handset in the world at Rs.777 and launched colour handset at Rs.999. The company has inked agreements with major handset vendors, including LG, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Spice, Fly Mobile and HTC and soon to have similar agreement with Nokia. These GSM handsets will be made available in all of its 2500 retail outlets. The present handset market size is 70-75 million units, and with the expansion of large-format retailers like RCOM, this number is going to cross 100 million this year. With its bulk buying capacity, RCOM is planning to offer the highest discount to the products thereby drawing more customers as their new subscribers. RCOM has placed handset order of $1 billion for its GSM venture. To give impetus to the project, the company will encourage its existing CDMA customers to shift over GSM service by offering easy deal for handset replacement. Approximately 5% increment in the monthly sales will be tapped to pull more customers for GSM service as revealed by the company source.
 
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