Tata Teleservices goes DoCoMo, hangs up all other brands

Tata Teleservices, the sixth largest mobile service provider, on Wednesday said it was merging all its services — GSM, CDMA, Internet data card and fixed-line — under one brand — DoCoMo.

Currently, Tata Tele operates five brands — Tata Indicom, Walkie, Photon, DoCoMo and Virgin Mobile. After the latest announcement, Tata Indicom, Photon and Walkie will become DoCoMo. The company is retaining the Virgin Mobile business though.

Company officials said it will “unlock synergies” and help save cost besides further extending the retail footprint of DoCoMo brand. “There are synergies among GSM, CDMA, internet data card and fixed-line services and by bringing them under one brand of DoCoMo, it will get unlocked then (synergies),” said Rajeev Narayan, vice president of Tata Teleservices.

Narayan said currently each brand is being promoted separately and have separate marketing budgets. After they become one, he said, there would be huge savings that could be ploughed back into the company for extending Tata Teleservices’ reach in the country.