With Airtel’s imminent launch in Bangladesh, Grameenphone has heated up the competition with three new packages and cheaper rates.
The announcement of new rates for pre-paid GP customers came on Sunday. Chief executive of Grameenphone Oddvar Hesjedal said that price plans had been changed ‘extensively’.
GP, country’s largest mobile-phone operator, slashed rates within 10 days of its chief executive apprehending that a price war, almost inevitable with Indian giant Airtel’s entry, would adversely affect the sector.
In an interview with the Economic Times, Hesjedal said that he feared Bharti (Airtel), which recently bought Warid Telecom’s Bangladeshi chapter, would “attack the market on price front and send tariffs plunging.”
“That is good for subscribers, but not for the sector,” he said in the interview published on March 3, adding that call rates in Bangladesh were already the lowest in the world.
But contradicting his conviction, Hesjedal announced cheaper rates saying that the change came in line with the need of its subscribers, found in a research by the company.
When asked if this was a pre-emptive bid to be ahead in a price war, the GP head said, “It has nothing to do with that. That was not the intention.”
The new packages are essentially simplified versions of the existing plans, said GP’s marketing chief Arild Kaale, admitting that the earlier pre-paid packages were complicated to choose from.
“A research by GP found that customers are forced to use our competitors’ connection as we now have only one price option,” he said.
Pre-paid GP subscribers have to spend Tk 1.50 per minute on average.
But the new packages — Shohoj, Aapon and Bondhu — have introduced cheaper rates and a wider range of options.
Shohoj package offers Tk 0.79 per minute call rate to all operators and Tk 1 per SMS.
The second option, Aapon has a relatively higher call rate of Tk 1.49 to other operators, but offers a special day time and night time tariff (12 pm-4 pm and 12 am -8 am respectively) of Tk 0.49 per minute for calls to GP numbers.
It also allows Tk 0.49 per minute call anytime to three Friends and Family (FnF) numbers.
The Bhondhu package offers seven FnF numbers at Tk 0.49 per minute anytime with a Tk 0.99 per minute call rate to all operators.
GP also made some changes in its Djuice connections, which is focused towards the youth and had managed to gain response due to its reduced call rates within Djuice users and special night time call rates.
Under the new arrangement, any GP pre-paid subscriber can switch to Djuice or vice versa.
Existing pre-paid subscribers can change to any of the packages free of charge until April 13, afterwards a migration fee of Tk 10 would be charged, the company said in a statement.
“Subscribers can migrate from package to package every 30 days to find the one that fits them best,” marketing chief Kaale told the press briefing.
The company, however, would charge an extra Tk 0.09 for the first minute of calls made by Apon and Djuice connections and an extra Tk 0.30 for the first minute of calls made by Shohoj and Bondhu connections.
GP puts an end to its previous pre-paid package titled Smile by the announcement of the new packages, which would be available at selling points from Monday, GP’s chief commercial officer Kazi Monirul Kabir told bdnews24.com.
“Every new pre-paid connection would be under the Shohoj package by default,” he added.
No comments:
Post a Comment