Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Western Union-Bharti mobile money transfer service by yr-end
“We had decided to jointly develop and pilot a mobile money transfer service in the country last year and it could be operational by the end of the year,” Executive Vice-President and Managing Director (Europe, West Asia, Africa, and South Asia), Hikmet Ersek, said here..
The move is part of a global initiative by the GSM Association wherein 35 mobile operators, spread across 100 countries, will work towards enabling the world’s 200 million international migrant workers to easily and securely send remittances to their dependents.
50,000th location
Western Union also announced that it has launched its 50,000th location in India. “With the opening of the 50,000th location, India has surpassed US in terms of the company’s agent network,” Ersek said after the inauguration of the agent location.
According to him, the company has 47,000 agent locations in US followed by 27,000 in China.
Western Union currently has a presence in around 5,000 cities and towns, 8,500 post offices, and 15,000 bank locations across the country.
“There is a lot of scope to increase money transfer business in the country as India receives $27 billion annually, which is the largest among the countries receiving remittances from abroad.
Generally we have also observed that the average size of each transaction is slightly over $350,” he said.
Biz in India
Ersek added that the company’s money transfer business in India increased by about 69 per cent in 2006-07 and they are looking at increasing their presence in the country.
GSM user base swells by 63% yoy
ndia's GSM telecom operator added 5.73mn new subscribers in December, taking the total base up to 171.88mn, the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) said on Wednesday. At the end of December last year, the total GSM subscriber base stood at 105.43mn while the same was 166.15mn as at November 30, 2007. Customers in the Metro Circle rose by 40% from the year earlier to 28.13mn, while in the A Circle the user base grew by 67% from last year's level to 62.48mn. Growth in the B Circle jumped by 68% to 62.47mn and the C Circle subscribers expanded by 74% to 18.8mn. Company wise break-up shows that Bharti Airtel, leader in the GSM space, added 2.2mn new customers last month while Vodafone Essar saw its subscriber base swell by 1.3mn new users. Idea Cellular added 831,764 new customers and Spice Communications added 139,210 new users. At the end of December, Bharti Airtel held a market share of 32% with a total of 55.16mn customers, while Vodafone Essar had a market share of 23.2% at 39.86mn subscribers. State-run BSNL accounted for 19% of the GSM market at 32.71mn customers and Idea held a market share of 12.25% at 21mn. | |
Idea Cellular seeks issuance of LoIs in 9 circles
In the letter dated December 27, the Aditya Birla Group company has also ‘cautioned’ the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) against allocating spectrum in these circles.
Idea stated it had applied for GSM mobile licences in nine circles on June 26, 2006. These were for service areas of Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Karnataka, Punjab, Orissa, West Bengal, Kolkata, Assam, North East and Jammu & Kashmir.
The company has stated a clause in UASL applications that an application should be decided within 30 days of its submission, and added that under the guidelines Idea should have allocated LoIs 18 months ago.
Idea said it has blocked financial resources for the licences, but “have been prevented from effecting payment solely because the DoT has not issued the LoIs”.
“We confirm we wish to effect payment of Rs 684.59 crore towards license entry fee, and furnish financial and performance bank Guarantees of Rs 220 crore and Rs 88 crore, respectively. These are against the Letters of Intent due to us,” it said.
The company also cautioned DoT stating that “no GSM initial spectrum allocation pertaining to applications subsequent to our of June 26, 2006, for the said nine service areas can be entertained until our applications, along with associated initial spectrum, are first disposed”.
It also said that any manipulation of initial spectrum allocation priority, achieved through the device of manipulation of dates of payment demands, would constitute an assault on government policy.
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