Bharti Airtel, India’s biggest mobile phone company on Thursday unveiled four new internet plans that will allow users to access more data on their smartphones, and in turn help its profits.
According to the new plans, Airtel would start giving 50% data back to prepaid who use data between midnight and 6am the next day; it would also introduce a package where data users can share their data package to 4-members within a family, Srini Gopalan director for consumer business at Bharti Airtel announced in a teleconference call.
Airtel plans to give out surprise gifts for mobile phone consumers within its network who upgrade to a smart-phone and to those who migrate to its network from other operators with a smart-phone, he said. The operator would also wave off subscription charges for song downloads through Wink Music and up to five movie downloads via Wink Movies, the music and movie app, but would still charge for the data charges, he said.
“We think this as a continuation of our journey to be a smart-phone network,” Gopalan said.
The move comes days after the New Delhi-based company reported a 2% sequential drop in net profits for the July-September quarter. Profits fell because of lower realisation on voice calls, and hyper-competition on high-margin data charges despite increased usage