As it aims to double its post-paid mobile customer base to 10 per cent in one year, BSNL has launched a facility wherein bills can be paid at over 5 lakh of its franchises or retailers all the seven days in a week.
The State-owned telecom firm has been citing bill payment problem as one of the issues for decline in its high revenue post-paid customer base.
“One of the reason for our declining post-paid users was the problems related to bill payment. But with the launch of this new facility from May 1, we are targeting to double our post-paid users to 10 per cent by May next year,” BSNL Director (Consumer Mobility) Anupam Shrivastava toldPTI.
Currently, 5 per cent of BSNL’s users are post paid as most of them prefer pre-paid due to hassles in bill payment.
Customers had to pay the bills on BSNL’s counters and billing centres during working hours only, which used to be a problem for working professionals.
The state-run company had 9.48 crore wireless subscribers at the end of February 2014.
“The average revenue per user (ARPU) for post-paid is around Rs. 400 whereas for pre-paid, it is in the range of Rs 90-100. It will be good for BSNL’s profitability, if we can increase the post paid users,” Mr. Shrivastava said.
He added the company has attractive post-paid plans but most of the people prefer pre-paid due to bill payment.
BSNL has a network of around 5 lakh franchisees and retailers across the country. The new facility will allow users to pay bills all the seven days and also during government holidays.
No additional amount will be charged from customers for using this facility.
BSNL has been logging losses since 2009-10. The company’s profits started declining after 2004-05, when it had made net gains of Rs. 10,183 crore.
The government had also constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) for revival of BSNL and MTNL.