Vendors – A part of BSNL’s 3G ad expenditure – The communication minister A Raja has introduced a forward looking cum innovative plan according to which vendors that provide equipments for 3G mobile services to state owned BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) would be a part of sharing the bill for advertising and marketing the services in the starting first 6 months of the launch.
Few days ago, in a meeting Huwaei, whose contract with BSNL for 20 million lines in the South has been finalized, Raja told the Chinese telecom equipment maker that it must co-invest with BSNL to popularize and generalize 3G in the country. In addition, same kind of arrangements would be made with vendors who have won the bid in other zones. It includes Ericsson both North and East zone with which price negotiations are going on.
As per informed sources, Huwaei has been necessitated to provide a plan and also show how much it will invest in the advertising and marketing exercise that includes all electronic and print advertisements, 3G kiosks, where you can experience below line activities as well as technology. It has been expected that in Tamil Nadu, the plan will go into 22 to 30 cities and 8 districts in towns. While inquiring that it will take participation in joint marketing effort or not, one of the Huwaei spokesperson stated, “BSNL is a prestigious customer of Huawei and we will be happy to partner with BSNL on all 3G development programmes. At the request of BSNL, Huawei conducted the soft launch of 3G activities in the Chennai and Tamil Nadu circles in March 2009.”
All across the country, according to industry experts, it has been evaluated that marketing and advertising for establishing 3G would cost between Rs 250 to 350 crores. While, some of them also said that it would cost more as the program also require to educate the consumer. The DoT (Department of Telecommunications) has figured out that one out of ten mobile subscribers actually employs all the services which are proffered to him; thus, there is a requirement to train and educate customers on the new service. Even, the initial soft launch of 3G services by both BSNL and MTNL has not been taken off; both of them have a few thousand subscribers.
Though, equipment makers directed out that with profit margins of not more than 3 to 5% in sale, the extra penny will highly affect them. These expenses have not been noticed and factored in when they bid for the equipment order.
Of course, Joint development of market is not at all a new concept. In India, in the initial days of releasing its CDMA technology for mobile telephony services, Qualcomm is used to run joint advertising campaigns with service operators to explicate to the consumers the benefits of the technology. All across the world, reckoned chip manufacturer Intel had several joint advertising programmes with manufacturers of personal computers.
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