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Vodafone India

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Vodafone Essar Limited
Company typeLimited
IndustryTelecom
Founded1994 as of Hutchison Essar
HeadquartersMumbai, Maharastra, India
ProductsMobile
Telecommunication operator
WebsiteVodafone India

Vodafone Essar, previously Hutchison Essar is a cellular operator in India that covers 23 telecom circles in India[1] . Despite the official name being Vodafone Essar, its products are simply branded Vodafone. It offers both prepaid and postpaid GSM cellular phone coverage throughout India with good presence in the metros.

Vodafone Essar provides 2.75G services based on 900 MHz and 1800 MHz digital GSM technology, offering voice and data services in 23 of the country's 23 licence areas. It is among the top three GSM mobile operators of India.

Ownership

Vodafone Essar is owned by Vodafone 52%, Essar Group 33%, and other Indian nationals, 15%.

On February 11, 2007, Vodafone agreed to acquire the controlling interest of 67% held by Li Ka Shing Holdings in Hutch-Essar for US$11.1 billion, pipping Reliance Communications, Hinduja Group, and Essar Group, which is the owner of the remaining 33%. The whole company was valued at USD 18.8 billion.[2] . The transaction closed on May 8, 2007.

Previous brands

In December 2006, Hutch Essar re-launched the "Hutch" brand nationwide, consolidating its services under a single identity. The Company entered into agreement with NTT DoCoMo to launch i-mode mobile Internet service in India during 2007.

The company used to be named Hutchison Essar, reflecting the name of its previous owner, Hutchison. However, the brand was marketed as Hutch. After getting the necessary government approvals with regards to the acquisition of a majority by the Vodafone Group, the company was rebranded as Vodafone Essar. The marketing brand was officially changed to Vodafone on 20 September 2007.

On September 20, 2007 Hutch becomes Vodafone in one of the biggest brand transition exercises in recent times.

Vodafone Essar is spending somewhere in the region of Rs 250 crores on this high-profile transition being unveiled today.Along with the transition, cheap cell phones have been launched in the Indian market under the Vodafone brand. The company also plans to launch co-branded handsets sourced from global vendors as well.

A popular daily quoted a Vodafone Essar director as saying that "the objective is to leverage Vodafone Group's global scale in bringing millions of low-cost handsets from across-the-world into India."

Incidentally, China's ZTE, which is looking to set-up a manufacturing unit in the country, is expected to provide several Vodafone handsets in India. Earlier this year, Vodafone penned a global low-cost handset procurement deal with ZTE.

Zoozoos

During the Indian Premier League (IPL), Vodafone commercialised Zoozoos, a white, ghost-like creatures with ballooned bodies and egg heads through their advertisements. These ads though look animated are in real humans in the Zoozoo costumes. Ogilvy & Mather, the agency that handles Vodafone advertisements, wanted to make real people look as animated as possible and hence employed Bangalore-based Nirvana Films to shoot these ads in Cape Town, South Africa, just in time for IPL.

O&M were asked to create around 29 commercials for the entire IPL season, with one new commercial to be aired each day. As at 05 May 2009, there have been close to 15 new commercials that have aired.

The name was chosen by Rajiv Rao, executive creative director, South Asia, Ogilvy India who explained that he chose the name to favour something that was "fun, memorable and catchy, and not a clever one that’s difficult to pronounce".

Making the Zoozoo

The Zoozoo's are in fact real people in costumes with rubber cut-out's for facial expressions, however the sets and production of the commercials give the effect of the characters being animated. The effect was achieved by a variety of methods including choosing the right material for the body suits to ensure that there were no wrinkles when the characters moved, shooting the footage at higher framerates and keeping backgrounds simple in terms of details and the use of a neutral tone of grey.

The zoozoo's were split in two parts - the body and the head. The body was made using a special material stuffed with foam in some places (notably around the stomach) while the head was created using using a harder material called Perspex.

The Zoozoo's have gained immense popularity since they first aired, and have their own microsite ([1]) as well as a fan page on Facebook.

Apple iPhone 3G

Vodafone launched the Apple iPhone 3G in India. It is available from 22nd of August 2008.

Growth of Hutchison Essar (1992-2005)

In 1992 Hutchison Whampoa and its Indian business partner established a company that in 1994 was awarded a licence to provide mobile telecommunications services in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and launched commercial service as Hutchison Max in November 1995. Analjit Singh of Max still holds 12% in company.

In Delhi, UP (E), Rajasthan and Haryana, ESSAR was the major partner. But later Hutch took the majority Stake.

By the time of Hutchison Telecom's Initial Public Offering in 2004, Hutchison Whampoa had acquired interests in six mobile telecommunications operators providing service in 13 of India's 23 licence areas and following the completion of the acquisition of BPL that number increased to 16. In 2006, it announced the acquisition of a company (Essar Spacetel — A subsidiary of Essar Group) that held licence applications for the seven remaining licence areas.

In a country growing as fast as India, a strategic and well managed business plan is critical to success. Initially, the company grew its business in the largest wireless markets in India — in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. In these densely populated urban areas it was able to establish a robust network, well known brand and large distribution network -all vital to long-term success in India. Then it also targeted business users and high-end post-paid customers which helped Hutchison Essar to consistently generate a higher Average Revenue Per User ("ARPU") than its competitors. By adopting this focused growth plan, it was able to establish leading positions in India's largest markets providing the resources to expand its footprint nationwide.

In February 2007, Hutchison Telecom announced that it had entered into a binding agreement with a subsidiary of Vodafone Group Plc to sell its 67% direct and indirect equity and loan interests in Hutchison Essar Limited for a total cash consideration (before costs, expenses and interests) of approximately US$11.1 billion or HK$87 billion.

1992: Hutchison Whampoa and Max Group established Hutchison Max

2000: Acquisition of Delhi operations Entered Calcutta and Gujarat markets through ESSAR acquisition

2001: Won auction for licences to operate GSM services in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Chennai

2003: Acquired AirCel Digilink (ADIL — ESSAR Subsidiary) which operated in Rajastan, Uttar Pradesh East and Haryana telecom circles and renamed it under Hutch brand

2004: Launched in three additional telecom circles of India namely 'Punjab', 'Uttar Pradesh West' and 'West Bengal'

2005: Acquired BPL (Except Mumbai)- 3 Circles, another mobile service provider in India

2008: Vodafone acquired the Licence in remaining 7 circles and has started operations in Orissa, Assam, North East, Bihar & Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh.

2008: Vodafone launched the Apple iPhone 3G to be used on its 17 circle 2.75G network.

Hutch was often praised for its award winning advertisements which all follow a clean, minimalist look. A recurrent theme is that its message Hello stands out visibly though it uses only white letters on red background. Another recent successful ad campaign in 2003 featured a pug named Cheeka following a boy around in unlikely places, with the tagline, Wherever you go, our network follows. The simple yet powerful advertisement campaigns won it many admirers.

Subscriber Base

The Vodafone subscriber base according to COAI — Cellular Operator Association of India as of Nov 2008 was:

The total is 5,46,24,809 or 23.38% of the total 233,676,930 GSM mobile connections in India till September 2008.

Vodafone Essar 58764164 or 23.57% of total 249349436.

References

  1. ^ "Vodafone Essar Ltd: Vodafone India — Mobile Communications worldwide". Vodafone.in. 2009-03-31. Retrieved 2009-05-01.
  2. ^ "/ Companies / Telecoms — Investors welcome Vodafone deal". Ft.com. Retrieved 2009-05-01.
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