Vodafone India has invested over INR 208 crores on ramping up network and distribution in Kerala in the last financial year (April 2014-March 2015). Vodafone, as part of an endeavour to be ‘Future Ready’ through closer engagement and enhanced customer experience has been focusing on the key areas of Customization, Enhanced Connectivity and Retail.
Pursuing an accelerated growth strategy since April 2014, Vodafone has added over 150 new sites, 1400 retail outlets and taken M-Pesa, its Mobile money transfer service, deeper into the migrant pockets to engage more closely with a diverse customer base in Kerala. With this expansion, Vodafone now reaches out to customers in over 1530 towns and villages bringing them under the fold of superior connectivity and seamless service experience.
Talking about the initiatives taken by Vodafone to facilitate a superior customer experience, Abhijit Kishore, Business Head – Kerala, Vodafone India, said “Gaining the trust of our customers and winning their hearts through innovative, customised, cost effective and relevant products and services, is a priority for us at Vodafone. We have been activating this at the ground level by pursuing a continued and consistent customer centric strategy to bring the best connectivity solutions to our valued customers. Our investments over the past year have been directed at putting in place a network that our customers can rely upon, especially in the interior regions. We have simultaneously been expanding retail and distribution network to get closer to customers across urban and rural geographies. The growing popularity of smart phones has led to a rise in demand for high speed data services. We see tremendous potential in this area and have been taking the lead in democratising data by hand holding customers on the ease and benefits of mobile internet usage.”
“Over the past year, we have also made deep inroads into the heartland of Kerala, reaching out to the migrant pockets and highlighting the safety, speed and simplicity of transferring money through Vodafone M-Pesa. At Vodafone, we see ourselves as end to end communications solutions providers and the Enterprise segment is an area where we have been steadily expanding our scope of offerings to suit the needs of large and small Corporates and businesses. Vodafone thus remains committed to continue investing in bringing the best in class, innovative, relevant, products and services to win customer delight in Kerala,” added Abhijit Kishore.
Vodafone now has over 5300 2G sites in Kerala circle covering over 97 % of the region’s population. Vodafone through an Intra Circle Roaming arrangement with other operators is also ensuring a seamless 3G roaming experience for its customers across 1000 towns and villages.
Vodafone has been taking a series of ground level activities to increase awareness and adoption of data services. This has resulted in Data revenues rising significantly at a growth rate of 75% YoY. Data now contributes to 14% of total service revenues in the Circle.
