Idea eyes 20 percent revenue pie from digital offerings

Mumbai: The third largest telco Idea Cellular, which is in talks with larger rival Vodafone for a merger, today unveiled a five-point plan to grow its digital revenues, as the arrival of Reliance Jio disturbs the largest segment of voice revenue. The new strategy will focus on entertainment, digital communication, payments, cloud and information offerings, Idea Managing Director Himanshu Kapania told reporters here. With the voice revenue share declining, the Aditya Birla Group company is targeting to derive up to 20 per cent of its revenues from the 'digital segment', 50 per cent from data and the rest from the traditional voice segment, he said.

The digital revenue-bolstering plans also include launch of the payments bank and starting an e-commerce portal as well, he said, adding "a large amount" is being invested on the customer experience management as well. The focus on digital will also help increase the network utilisation for the company, which has committed over Rs 60,000 crore for spectrum acquisition in the last three years, to over 10 per cent. The company today launched first of its digital offerings on the entertainment front, with music, movies and gaming services.

Customers will have to pay Rs 49 a month for movie and music services, and Rs 29 for gaming, the company said, adding the data usage will be charged as per the customer's plan. As an introductory offer, the company has waived off charges for first three months. Kapania declined to give the investments being done by the company in the ventures, but announced it is targeting to get 1 million of its over 200 million customers aboard by end of the first quarter. Kapania said partnering with the ecosystem is a key for this strategy, which is a departure from the decades-old practice in the sector where companies do everything by itself.

He said Idea Money is in process of being merged with the Aditya Birla-Idea Payments Bank and the differentiated banking entity will be launched this year. The company is also working to launch an e-commerce venture dedicated to sell wares connected to the telecom ecosystem like mobile phones and accessories by end of 2017, he said. Meanwhile, Kapania declined to comment on Vodafone's statement of the company being in talks with Idea for a merger. Listing out the plans and investments done, he said the two-decade old company is here to stay for another 20 years at least.