Tata Docomo in revamp mode

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Tata Docomo in revamp mode

Faced with mounting losses, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra is going all out to change its fortunes. Even as rumour mills buzz with talk of high-level exits from the company, CNBC-TV's Nikita Rana reports it is betting on realigning its brand as part of its mobile business consolidation exercise.

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Excerpts from India Business Hour on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show »

Faced with mounting losses, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra is going all out to change its fortunes. Even as rumour mills buzz with talk of high-level exits from the company, CNBC-TV's Nikita Rana reports it is betting on realigning its brand  as part of its mobile business consolidation exercise.

Tata Docomo- it's the brand that will include all of Tata Teleservices' mobile businesses -- Tata Indicom, Tata Walky and Tata Photon. It's also the brand the company has chosen as it charts a rise to number-3 on the mobile operator charts even though as subscriber base goes, it ranks sixth after Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Vodafone, Idea and BSNL.

So why did it choose 3-year old Docomo over 6-year old Indicom?

Deepak Gulati, Executive President-  Mobility Business, Tata Teleservices says, "In the larger market place when compared to the other incumbents when compared to the other telecom services, Tata Docomo stood out as the most refreshing and the largest growth brand in the industry."

Charles Wright, MD, Wolff Olins says, "Indicom was very successful in terms of subscriber numbers, it had somewhere near 50 millions subscribers as I understand by autumn of this year, so that's not a problem. It was rather that Indicom had become a brand about price, and Indicom had become a brand which was a bit down market."

Since Internet and smart phone users will form 40% of the market in the next five years, Tata Teleservices is keen on positioning the Docomo brand as a non-voice lifestyle brand. So Tata Docomo has launched 13 lifestyle 3G services like Route Finder, Live Darshan and Comics over the last month -- a lot more than Bharti Airtel or Vodafone's current offerings.

In addition, with the Indicom brand being phased out, the amount spent on marketing and advertising the Docomo brand is set to grow by 100 crore rupees a year to around Rs 350 crore a year. Tata Docomo will also leverage Tata Indicom's 3,000-strong retail footprint to reach out to more customers.

The internal consolidation of brands at Tata Teleservices is just the beginning of what we are likely to see in the industry over the next 3-4 years. According to experts, it's just the top three to four data service providers who will survive and that's what Tata Docomo is gunning for.