Birth of Digital Idea, With the launch of a suite of integrated Digital Entertainment Apps

Idea Cellular, one of the leading Indian telecom operators, today announced its arrival into the digital world with the launch of 3 new exciting Mobile Apps – Idea Music Lounge, Idea Movie Club, and Idea Game Spark – giving birth to a “Digital Idea”. The new suite of integrated Digital Apps present one of the best range of entertainment content for its nearly 200 million customers.

The 3 Idea entertainment apps were launched at an event in Mumbai by Mr. Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director of Idea Cellular, in presence of partners along with senior executives from Aditya Birla Group and Idea Cellular. These digital content applications will serve as a one-stop entertainment destination initially for Ideasubscribers, providing access on the fingertips to a large collection of popular and premium content, including a rich assortment of Hindi, Vernacular and International content.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director, IdeaCellular, said, “Having committed significant investments in building a world class wireless broadband network in the country, Idea has decided to enhance its portfolio of services. With the birth of ‘Digital Idea’, the company is gearing itself for catering to the growing population of mobile users who consume digital content on their mobile devices. Our vision for ‘Digital Idea’ is based on the concept of ‘Digital Inclusion’ rather than disruption – natural extension for the Idea transforming consumer. We are confident that the new ‘Digital Idea’ will be an important and significant contributor in shaping New Digital India.”

With the launch of Idea Music Lounge, Idea Movie Club and Idea Game Spark, the company has begun its transformation from a pure play mobile operator to an integrated digital services and solutions provider.

Idea’s Digital Services offerings

 Idea Music Lounge, Idea Movie Club, and Idea Game Spark offer a complete suite of digital entertainment services and mark Idea’s entry into the world of digital services.

1.     Idea Music Lounge offers a rich library of nearly 2 million Indian and international music tracks initially, going up to nearly 20 million tracks soon, on Google Play Store and coming soon on iOS store. Idea Music Lounge hosts diverse content not only across 13 Indian languages, including Bollywood, South Indian Cinema etc, but also across International artists, albums and tracks from several major Music labels. Idea customers can stream music for free or download it 24x7. The app also allows customers to create their own music playlist in addition to curated playlists and Radios.

Idea Music Lounge comes with a number of leading features such as ‘DJ Mode’which enables transition of songs similar to DJ effect; ‘Wake Up Mode’ with the consumer’s favorite song, and ‘Dynamic Lyrics’ feature to enable customers to sing along while listening to their favorite tracks and ‘Data Saver mode’.

The standard Idea Music Lounge subscription with unlimited downloads in the App is priced at just Rs. 49 for a month, while streaming of unlimited music is free. However, an exclusive introductory offer allows subscribers downloading the App till 31^st March 2017, a free subscription for 90 days.

2.     Idea Movie Club caters to the ever-growing video content needs of consumers,offering thousands of blockbuster movies, Live TV, 7 days catch-up TV, along with a series of Original content and Short Videos across all genres and several languages. The rich content of videos and movies from Bollywood, South Indian & Regional Cinema will appeal to people across all age groups, including kids, for whom there is a host of animation and learning videos. Live and Catch up TV including premium channels, is offered in collaboration with Ditto TV. The app is available on Google Play Store and iOS store.

The standard subscription charge to Idea Movie Club App is competitively priced at just Rs. 49 per month for unlimited Movies, Videos and TV streaming. As a part of the exclusive introductory offer, all subscribers downloading the Idea Movie Club App till 31^st March 2017 will be able to use this service for free for next 90 days.

3.     Idea Game Spark is the ultimate gaming destination with a collection of over1,500 games across all genres. Targeted at the gaming aficionado and the casual gamer, the games can be played both in the online and offline mode.

Idea Game Spark can be accessed by all Idea as well as non-Idea users onwww.ideagamespark.com. The store features popular gaming content from several leading gaming studios.  Idea Game Spark is also the first subscription game store offering the latest and popular, Virtual Reality Games. Once subscribed to the store, the customer can download unlimited games across genres such as Racing, Cricket, Cards, Sports, Bollywood etc. including premium titles like ‘Virat Cricket’, ‘Need for Speed’, and many more. Games are available on monthly subscription basis and the company intends to introduce range of other tariff models such as pay per download and freemium. The store also gives games users access tohundreds of free games.

Idea Game Spark monthly subscription charges are very competitively priced at just Rs. 29 per month for unlimited games both online and downloads, for all consumers.As a part of the exclusive introductory offer, post sign-in of the Idea Game Spark App till 31st March 2017, 90 days of free subscription will be available.

Speaking at the launch, Sashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer, Idea Cellularsaid, “Music, Entertainment and Sports have always been at the core of Idea’s brand building and customer engagement strategy, and the company has always designed products and services keeping in mind the consumers’ ever evolving needs. Entertainment as a category constitutes one of the most widely consumed digital content services. With the Brand promise of “changing lives” Idea launches a suite of digitalapps across Movies, TV, Music, Games, among others, to match the soaring demands of this “on the move” online generation. Idea customers will now be able to consume the best entertainment content, offered by any service provider in India, through our collaboration with world class technology partners.”

Sunil Tolani, National Head of Digital, Idea Cellular, said “Digital Entertainment services is just the beginning. Idea will, in the immediate future, also expand its digital offerings into digital communication, digital payments, cloud & storage, digital information and many more. Best in class digital Consumer Experience, Collaboration with Indian & Global Partners, developer eco-system and Co-Existence rather than competition with the Physical, will be the key building blocks.Digital Idea will also provide open access platforms to millions of developers. ‘DigitalIdea’ is for the masses to enable over 1.3 billion Indians to ‘Get more out of life.”

The digital services and apps provide all kinds of payment options viz. wallets, debit/credit card and net-banking etc. All these modes enable the user to pay easily and securely for games, subscriptions, avail offers and make in app purchases.

Championing Mobile Voice Services for the masses

Idea’s foray into digital services comes on the back of its success in taking mobile voice services to the Indian masses, and establishing a mobile broadband infrastructure in recent years.

The company’s sprawling mobile voice network spans 400,000 towns and villages in the country, covering over a billion Indians who can enjoy Idea’s high quality mobile voice services. Idea has been the ‘Fastest growing telecom operator’ for 8 consecutive years, and today enjoys the trust of nearly 200 million Indians.

Pan-India Mobile Broadband footprint by March 2017, with 4G Services in 9 more circles

Idea’s 4G services, are presently available across 11 existing telecom service areas. The company already offers 3G services across 21 telecom services areas on its own spectrum and in partnership. Over the last one year, the company has more than doubled its mobile broadband network on 3G/4G platform, and now covers over 50% of India’s population. Idea’s mobile broadband data services are currently available to nearly 500 million Indians across nearly 100,000 towns and villages.The company is now gearing to launch its 4G LTE services in its 9 new 4G telecom service areas and 3G services in Bihar and Rajasthan, by March 2017, thereby making Idea broadband services available pan India.

Post the October 2016 spectrum auction, Idea Cellular has further enhanced its spectrum portfolio, sufficient to take care of the majority of its future capacity requirements, specifically in its 15 leadership markets. The company intends to launch 2^nd mobile broadband carriers on 1800 MHz in 7 leadership markets (where Idea is No.1 or No.2) and 2300 MHz carriers in its 3 leading markets, while continuing to expand its 3G 900 MHz services in Maharashtra & Goa, and Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, over the next financial year. It also possesses 2500 MHz 4G LTE carriers across 16 telecom service areas (the popular 4G LTE capacity spectrum band in China) to expand capacity whenever needed.