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T24 Mobile is GSM Mobile Service launched by Future Group jointly with Tata Teleservices Limited and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited.
Future Group, led by its founder and Group CEO, Mr. Kishore Biyani, is one of India's leading business houses with multiple businesses spanning across the consumption space. While retail forms the core business activity of Future Group, group subsidiaries are present in consumer finance, capital, insurance, leisure and entertainment, brand development, retail real estate development, retail media and logistics.
Led by its flagship enterprise, Pantaloon Retail, the group operates over 16 million square feet of retail space in 73 cities and towns and 65 rural locations across India. Headquartered in Mumbai (Bombay), Pantaloon Retail employs around 30,000 people and is listed on the Indian stock exchanges. The company follows a multi-format retail strategy that captures almost the entire consumption basket of Indian customers. In the lifestyle segment, the group operates Pantaloons, a fashion retail chain and Central, a chain of seamless malls. In the value segment, its marquee brand, Big Bazaar is a hypermarket format that combines the look, touch and feel of Indian bazaars with the choice and convenience of modern retail.
In 2008, Big Bazaar opened its 100th store, marking the fastest ever organic expansion of a hypermarket. The first set of Big Bazaar stores opened in 2001 in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
The group's speciality retail formats include supermarket chain – Food Bazaar, sportswear retailer - Planet Sports, electronics retailer - eZone, home improvement chain - Home Town and rural retail chain, Aadhaar, among others. It also operates popular shopping portal - www.futurebazaar.com.
Future Capital Holdings, the group's financial arm provides investment advisory to assets worth over $1 Billion that are being invested in consumer brands and companies, real estate, hotels and logistics. It also operates a consumer finance arm with branches in 150 locations.
Other group companies include, Future Generali, the group's insurance venture in partnership with Italy's Generali Group, Future Brands, a brand development and IPR company, Future Logistics, providing logistics and distribution solutions to group companies and business partners and Future Media, a retail media initiative.
The group's presence in Leisure & Entertainment segment is led through, Mumbai-based listed company Galaxy Entertainment Limited. Galaxy leading leisure chains, Sports Bar and Bowling Co. and family entertainment centres, F123. Through its partner company, Blue Foods the group operates around 100 restaurants and food courts through brands like Bombay Blues, Spaghetti Kitchen, Noodle Bar, The Spoon, Copper Chimney and Gelato.
Future Group's joint venture partners include, US-based stationery products retailer, Staples and Middle East-based Axiom Communications.
Future Group believes in developing strong insights on Indian consumers and building businesses based on Indian ideas, as espoused in the group's core value of 'Indianness.' The group's corporate credo is, 'Rewrite rules, Retain values.'
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TATA TELESERVICES LTD
Tata Teleservices Limited spearheads the Tata Group's presence in the telecom sector. The Tata Group had revenues of around US $75 billion in financial year 2008-09, and includes over 90 companies, over 350,000 employees worldwide and more than 3.5 million shareholders.
Incorporated in 1996, Tata Teleservices Limited is the pioneer of the CDMA 1x technology platform in India. It has embarked on a growth path since the acquisition of Hughes Tele.com (India) Ltd [renamed Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited] by the Tata Group in 2002. It launched mobile operations in January 2005 under the brand Tata Indicom and today enjoys a pan-India presence through existing operations in all of India's 22 telecom Circles. The company is also the market leader in the fixed wireless telephony market with its brand Walky. The company has recently introduced the brand Photon to provide a variety of options for wireless mobile broadband access. The company's network has been rated as the 'Least Congested' in India for last five consecutive quarters by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India through independent surveys.
Tata Teleservices Limited now also has a presence in the GSM space, through its joint venture with NTT DOCOMO of Japan, and offers differentiated products and services under the TATA DOCOMO brand name. TATA DOCOMO arises out of the Tata Group's strategic alliance with Japanese telecom major NTT DOCOMO in November 2008. TATA DOCOMO has received a pan-India license to operate GSM telecom services-and has also been allotted spectrum in 18 telecom Circles. The company has rolled out GSM services in 14 of India's 22 telecom Circles in a quick span of under six months. The company plans to launch pan-India operations by the end of FY 2009-10.
TATA DOCOMO marks a significant milestone in the Indian telecom landscape, and has already redefined the very face of telecoms in India, being the first to pioneer the per-second tariff option-part of its 'Pay for What You Use' pricing paradigm. Tokyo-based NTT DOCOMO is one of the world's leading mobile operators-in the Japanese market, the company is the clear market leader, used by over 50 per cent of the country's mobile phone users. Today, Tata Teleservices Limited, along with Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited, serves over 58 million customers in more than 410,000 towns and villages across the country, with a bouquet of telephony services encompassing mobile services, wireless desktop phones, public booth telephony, wireline services and enterprise solutions.
In December 2008, Tata Teleservices Limited announced a unique reverse equity swap strategic agreement between its telecom tower subsidiary, Wireless TT Info-Services Limited, and Quippo Telecom Infrastructure Limited-with the combined entity kicking off operations in early 2009 with 18,000 towers, thereby becoming the largest independent entity in this space-and with the highest tenancy ratios in the industry. The WTTIL-Quippo combine is targeting over 50,000 towers by the end of FY 2010-11. |
