Aircel has announced that their standalone application, 'Aircel App Recharge & BillPay,' has been downloaded by 20 percent more people in the Q4 2016. Aircel claims that the massive growth is due to the scrapping of old notes (demonetization), which, in turn, has app downloads registering a tremendous growth in the same period.
Aircel says that the uptake in the online transactions and app download was seen from states like Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka.
Commenting on the growth, Anupam Vasudev, Chief Marketing Officer, Aircel, said, “The online transactions saw a huge shift post demonetization era wherein customers invested heavily in e-wallets along with credit /debit & net banking facilities. The Aircel app also witnessed a surge in transactions which led to increasing of our online business revenue by 7.9% in the last quarter, which is by far one of the best growth figures for a telecom app. The app also helped us gain insights into customer preferences, and we were able to give special products on the app thus leading to its high uptake.”
He added, “We would continue to offer innovative services targeting the online domain and reaching out to both existing and potential customers. We have introduced additional features to our app like Data Loan, Payment through Main Account Balance and UPI as a payment option. Soon we will be integrating our Aircel Money as the payment option and Chat Bots.”
However, the craze for the app is solely not only because of the demonetization, but it's also because of Aircel's app only offers. Aircel is offering attractive deals when they recharge via Aircel app. The company has an App only scheme of Rs. 86, which by recharging gives talk time of 86 along with 100MB of free data.
To further strengthen its online subscriber base, Aircel has introduced a special service to deliver Aircel SIM with add-on benefits. To recall, Aircel started SIM delivery service in April 2015, but the company says for every new SIM card delivered at a potential customer's doorstep, they will be rewarded with free talk time worth Rs. 50. The offering of “SIM at your doorstep” can be applied online through Aircel’s website, mobile site or app.