James Rosewell writes:
One paisa is equivalent to 1/100 of an Indian rupee. In American dollars, a paisa is worth 0.00022 cents. For the British reading this, that’s 0.00013 pence.
Why is this important?
A company in India called MTS have launched a pay as you go SIM card that allows you to make on-network calls for ½ paisa per second, or off-network calls to other mobiles and landlines for 1 paisa. That’s the equivalent of 79 cents or 47p per hour for off-network calls on a pay as you talk SIM card with no strings attached.
For the same money, an off-network call in the UK will get you about 2½ minutes of talk time!
Vodafone’s half-year results for 30th September 2009 show profits up 2.7%. Telefonica shows a modest organic revenue growth of 0.1% for the nine-month period ending September 2009. With western markets saturated and modest profit increases driven mainly from new customers in developing markets, it seems mobile operators will need to look east to find new and innovative ways to reduce operating costs and maintain profits at home. New products and services will only get them so far - and reducing operating costs requires less capital expenditure and risk.