To survive in a cut-throat competition, telecom operator Uninor wants to focus more on value and less on volumes.From just taking on new customers, it would rather have subscribers who are "active" on its network.
With this value addition, it is looking at graduating into the mid-tier category, just below the top three - Bharti, Vodafone and Idea Cellular.
Uninor - a joint venture between India's Unitech and Norway's Telenor - may have been hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons, but for its subscribers it offers one of the most competitive pre-paid tariffs in the country.
That has already ensured a subscriber base of around 26.3 million. But as the latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India suggest, 55 per cent of its total user base is active.
And it is them that Uninor wants to increasingly focus on.
"We have set a target of achieving a decent number of active subscribers by the end of the next year.
"Our methods of calculating active subscribers are also more stringent. If a SIM card is not used for a month, we do not consider it active," said Rajiv Bawa, executive vice-president
of corporate affairs.
On one hand, Uninor will continue to focus on its no-frills offering by sticking to pre-paid voice and basic value added services but the attention will be on increase usage among its subscribers.
More usage would mean more revenues per user and that would add to the profitability of its operations, which are still in the red.
The operator, which does not offer premium services like 3G or even post-paid connections, claims to offer value for money.
"Our 'onnet' (within the network) calling rates are extremely competitive, because there are no termination charges and since the subscriber base is small, we have space in the network as well," said Bawa.
Its most aggressive value-added service offering is music downloads which come in unlimited offers.
Uninor's business model is somewhat contraction in a sector which has seen most operators scurrying for subscriber volumes in the last few years, thereby affecting their margins and revenues.
The popularity of multiple SIM usage made matters worse for the operators.
