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Tatas revives dotcom firm to sell CDMA handsets
BS Corporate Bureau in Mumbai |
July 22, 2003 11:11 IST
The Tata group has revived a four-year-old dotcom company -- DriveIndia.Com Ltd -- to procure and sell code division multiple access mobile handsets in Maharashtra and Goa.
A senior executive with the Tata group said, "DriveIndia.com is one of the six companies which have been roped in to provide complete telecommunications solutions to customers."
The group is realigning the business of the dotcom company with that of its telecommunication companies. The dotcom venture will henceforth not only procure handsets from international handset providers but will also provide finance schemes so that customers can obtain handsets in easy instalments.
It will also look at other business opportunities in the terminal equipment space such as procuring and selling modems in the future.
In fact, the dotcom firm had earlier taken the mandate of procuring CDMA handsets from its group company, the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction-referred Itel Industries.
The group has separated the two aspects of the business -- providing CDMA handsets and providing wireless in local loop services -- in order to allow Tata Teleservices to focus on the service aspect of the business and not to get involved in legalities to recover dues and the handset from the customer in case of defaults.
According to a Tata group spokesperson, "Tata Teleservices would like to focus on the service aspect of the business and would not get into non-core customer services as providing handsets.
This would be done by DriveIndia.com."The Tata group, through Tata Teleservices, is launching WLL services in Mumbai sometime early next month.
It has already made a foray as a WLL service provider in select cities of Maharashtra such as Nagpur, Pune and Aurangabad.
As a vendor, DriveIndia.com has chalked out three plans -- economy 450, executive 599 and privilege 999 under which the customer can get CDMA handsets.
For the economy and executive plans, the customer will have to make an upfront payment of Rs 999 with equated monthly installment of Rs 199 for two years.