Tata DoCoMo, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices, which has always come up with innovative offers, has tied up with Nokia to provide Tata DoCoMo users Nokia Ovi Life Tools. Nokia Life Tools are great services targeting emerging markets (read rural areas) in India by providing information in Agriculture, Education, and Entertainment. Nokia and Tata DoCoMo will collaborate to offer Nokia Ovi Life Tools services to all Tata DoCoMo subscribers., as per the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
Tata DoCoMo has launched services across 17 circles and soon will be a pan India operator. Though it has had a hard time picking up in major cities, Tata DoCoMo has got a great customer base in rural India thanks to the great offers provided by it. However, if you are wondering why Nokia would want to team up with a provider to expand their services, then all you have to do is look at the lower end of the mobile market in India. Though Nokia still has 52% market share in the country, the advent of companies like Lava and Lemon, to name a few, have taken up the majority of the lower end mobile market and now Nokia want to change those statistics by focusing on the rural areas.
“Nokia Ovi Life Tools is a service that has the potential of transforming the lives of the rural and semi-urban population of India. For this service to scale and benefit larger section of users, it is important to have partners like Tata DOCOMO who share Nokia’s vision of empowering people with the right tools.”, said Mr. V Ramnath, Director, Operator Accounts, Nokia India.
Mr. GurinderSingh Sandhu, Head Marketing, Tata DOCOMO said, “This is a great platform for us to make a difference to the lives of our customers in smaller towns and rural markets in a relevant and meaningful way.Both Agriculture and Educational services on Mobile are life assisting services which will act as powerful enablers in helping people earn their living. We are proud to associate with Nokia and we are confident that Tata DOCOMO subscribers will find these services useful.”
Nokia Life Tools supports 11 Indian languages of Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya and English, and is available to customers in two different plans of Rs. 60 and Rs. 30. The former offers, the closest market prices for three crops chosen by the subscriber, as well as weather information, news, advice and tips, while the cheaper option gives you daily weather updates and relevant agriculture-related news, advice and tips.
With this collaboration, both parties are looking to boost their market. How rural India will welcome this deal is something we have to wait and watch. Do you think Tata DoCoMo and Nokia have come up with a foolproof plan to capture the market?
