Robi offers Friday, Saturday tariff (Bangladesh)
Robi Axiata has launched a promotional tariff for Fridays and Saturdays. The tariff is available to eligible prepaid customers for every Friday and Saturday from 6am to 6pm.
On-net calls are charged at BDT 0.25 while off-net calls cost BDT 0.65, and SMS messages cost BDT 0.48.
SingTel ended Q1 with 403 mn mobile subs (Singapore)
SingTel group has ended its first quarter with 403 million mobile customers in 25 countries which rose by 37% year-on-year.
Bharti’s total mobile customer base reached 212 million from its operations across Asia and Africa with an increase of 66 percent, while its India mobile customer base expanded 27 percent to 162 million.
Telkomsel in Indonesia added 5.4 million mobile customers in the quarter bringing the total to 99.4 million and AIS in Thailand ended the quarter with 32 million mobile customers, increased by 8 percent year-on-year.
Philippines’ Globe had 27.3 million mobile customers, an increase of 14 percent and Warid in Pakistan had a mobile customer base of 17.8 million, up 9 percent from from a year ago.
In Bangladesh, Citycell’s (PBTL) total mobile customer base declined by 6 percent to 1.8 million due to a change in the regulatory definition of active customer base.
Optus in Australia saw its customer base exceed 9 million as the operator added 103,000 new customers in the quarter. The number of 3G customers increased to 5.09 million, a 41 percent increase from a year ago.
SingTel’s operation in Singapore achieved its highest quarterly postpaid net addition in ten years as the company gained 51,000 new postpaid customers. Total net adds for the quarter stood at 78,000 bringing SingTel’s total customer base to 3.31 million.
Comviva bags 92 deployments of mobile recharge systems (India)
Comviva has secured 92 deployments of mobile money and recharge systems globally.
Comviva’s mobile financial services product mobiquity is now present in 38 countries and has enabled over 230 million end customers to access from card-free and cash-free financial services via their mobile phones.
An Asian operator is performing over 410,000 utility bill payment transactions monthly on the mobiquity platform.
On deploying the PreTUPS electronic recharge system, a South Asian operator penetrated the low-income market segment by offering previously unavailable low denomination top-ups. Across Africa, PreTUPS enables recharge for 100 million mobile subscribers in nineteen markets.
In India, a major operator, with over 100 million subscribers, is providing mobile payment and ticketing services using the mobiquity platform. In Bangladesh, an operator pioneered international remittance services between major migrant-worker markets using mobiquity.
In Cambodia, a regional bank provides a suite of financial services, including salary payments, remittance services and bill payments.
Vodafone introduces promotion on Calling Card 25 (Qatar)
Vodafone Qatar has introduced a new promotion on its International Calling Card 25 that will offer calls to 15 popular international destinations at US$0.13 a minute.
The promotion will run until 31 May, and customers will get 51 minutes of international calling when they buy the card to call India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Thailand, Syria, Sudan, Turkey, Bahrain, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
The International Calling Card 25 can be used by all Vodafone customers on their mobile phones.
Unlike other calling cards, consumers do not need to dial special numbers and enter PIN codes to use the card; with Vodafone’s International Card 25 all they need to do is load the card as they would any other scratch card.
Etisalat introduces BlackBerry Homeland promotion (UAE)
Etisalat has introduced its new ‘BlackBerry Homeland’ promotion, exclusive to Wasel and postpaid BlackBerry customers who subscribe to the Unlimited Domestic Social Package.
The offer provides 15 free international minutes every month for a period of six months from the date of subscription. These free minutes can be used to call India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Philippines. The promotion is valid until 31 July
. To avail of the BlackBerry Homeland promotion, customers can subscribe to the Unlimited Domestic Social Package by sending a SMS with the text HL49 to 1010. Customers can also visit the Etisalat business center or Etisalat outlets and subscribe to the service.
The Unlimited Domestic Social Package is designed to give customers a more personalized offer based on specific user needs and is priced at US$13.34 per month. The Unlimited Social Package allows customers to access specific social networking and messaging applications without having to worry about data usage limits. Email access and internet browsing are however excluded from the package.
STC rolls-out offer for international calls (Saudi Arabia)
STC has introduced Sawa International, offering international calls to selected countries from US$0.14 per minute.
The company claims this is the cheapest international fare for prepaid cards in the country.
Under the new offer, STC customers can make discounted calls to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt and Philippines for US$0.14 per minute, while calls to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon and Nepal cost US$0.18 per minute.
Calls to Kuwait and UAE cost US$0.23 per minute. The discounted rate for calls to Morocco, Algeria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Eritrea is 102 halls per minute and calls to Somalia are US$0.34 per minute.
STC announced that this offer is available to all Sawa and Lana customers for one month starting 13 May.
Vodafone Qatar launches international calls at $0.17
Vodafone Qatar’s World Calling Club is offering international call rates to more than 190 countries for US$0.17 a minute.
Calling destinations included in this promotion are Bahrain, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Iran, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, UK, US and Yemen.
Vodafone is also running a promotion on its International Calling Card 25 that gives customers 46 minutes of talk time to 15 popular destinations at a rate of QAR 0.14 a minute. Both promotions run until the end of May.
Bangladesh ministry proposes lower spectrum fees
The Bangladesh telecommunications ministry has proposed to revise the spectrum charges for the four mobile operators that need to renew their licences.
The ministry proposes to cut fees by over US$0.55 billion from what the regulator proposed earlier.
Under the new proposal, Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi, and Citycell will pay a total of US$1.07 billion for licence renewal while the regulator proposed a total of US$1.66 billion. The 900 and 1,800 MHz band will be priced the same at US$0.02 billion for 3G operators Grameenphone, Banglalink, and Robi.
CDMA operator Citycell will be required to pay US$0.01 billion per MHz. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) earlier set a spectrum utilisation fee that was different for each operator, based on the number of subscribers.
The ministry’s proposal sets the spectrum utilisation for Grameenphone at 1.60, for Banglalink at 1.10, for Robi at 0.95, and for Citycell at 0.45. The ministry will soon make a final decision on the licence procedures and will meet with the finance and planning ministries to finalise the pricing.
Grameenphone prolongs BillPay with Jalalabad Gas (Bangladesh)
Grameenphone , Jalalabad Gas Transmission and Distribution Systems have jointly launched the electronic BillPay service for gas bills.
The BillPay service was launched on 14 March this year for paying utility bills. The service is available to all mobile users in Bangladesh, regardless of operator.
Once a bill is paid, the user will receive an SMS notification. In addition to Jalalabad Gas, DPDC, Desco, Titas Gas, Bakhrabad Gas, and Karnaphuli Gas have joined BillPay. The service is also available for BPDB users in Sylhet, Rajshahi and Chittagong.
Grameenphone Q1 revenues grow by 21% (Bangladesh)
Grameenphone has posted that its revenues in the first quarter grew but saw profits slip.
Revenues were up by 21.3 percent from the first quarter of 2010. The growth was mainly from voice, data and interconnection traffic driven by 33.8 percent growth in subscription base, as well as revenues from sale of mobile devices.
Grameenphone added 2 million new customers in the quarter and ended the period with 32 million subscribers in total. The number of mobile internet users went up 61 percent year-on-year. EBITDA margin was down to 47.8 percent from 55.4 percent.
