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BPL launches Instacard facility in four more cities

P Swaminathan, BPL Mobile's Maharashtra circle chief told reporters recently that MOTS is a packaged mobile phone with a pre-activated SIM card. It can be bought over the counter.

T O D A Y

• Vapourware! • Apple restructuring • Supercomputer curbs • BPL Instacard

The pre-activated SIM card, the Instacard, is available in various denominations upwards of Rs 1,500 and has a maximum validity of four months, after which the consumer can recharge and reuse it.

The MOTS-Instacard combination gives the mobile phone user the advantage of being "in control'' by telling him exactly how much value of airtime she is using up, he claimed.

The Instacard, when loaded on the mobile, will initially display the value programmed in it, after which it will show the balance left, even as a call is being made. The amount by which the value decrement is calculated depends on the type of call - mobile-to-mobile, STD, local or IDA - that the consumer makes.

The company is targeting the product at the untapped segments of the market such as travellers, students and specific occasion usage such as conferences and marriages, Swaminathan said.

The USP of the product is its instant availability in ready-to-use form, without formalities such as paperwork.

The company plans to initially make the product available in BPL showrooms, but eventually plans to aggressively market the product by displaying it in high-visibility areas such as airports and railway stations.

MOTS will be available in two variants - the Nokia 1610 and the Motorola d160 models priced at Rs 9,675 and Rs 11,475 respectively.

Consumers will not be charged additional activation charges and an Instacard worth Rs 1,500 will come as part of the package, R S Suresh Kumar, manager, marketing, said.

The company has come up with Instacards of Rs 3,000, 5,000 and 10,000 denominations and is making an introductory offer of 15 per cent additional talk-time on these cards.

The company has claimed the number one status in the Maharashtra circle with 55 per cent market share. Swaminathan claimed that the figure has been computed on the basis of the service tax paid for their operations.

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