India’s Mobile Subscriber Market: ZooZoos Are Back!

July 23, 2013 Posted by India Briefing Reading Time: 2 minutes

India now the world’s fastest growing mobile subscriber market

Jul. 23 – The ZooZoos, a televised advertising campaign launched by Vodafone India to promote their mobile telecoms services in India, are back for this year’s Indian Premier League (or IPL, an international Twenty20 cricket league). Launched in 2009, the characters were retired for last season’s cricket advertising campaign, but brought back by popular demand for this year’s season.

The ZooZoos are white creatures with rounded bodies and egg-shaped heads which promote the services of Vodafone India. The advertising campaign has been one of the most successful ever in Asia, with the ZooZoos pulling in over 10 million fans on Facebook.

The ZooZoo advertisements have been broadcasted during the live televised coverage of the IPL this season. The adverts are quite unusual – running for only 40 seconds, there is no dialogue and features only verbal expressions and stand-up comedy routines that hearken back to the silent era of films.

This feature purposely maneuvers around the various language and English dialect issues across India, and has helped Vodafone attract a massive consumer base in the country. Vodafone reached 100 million Indian subscribers in 2010, a figure that has jumped to over 150 million during 2013. India has the world’s second largest mobile phone subscriber network and its fastest growing subscriber base.

In terms of growth potential for example, China has reached almost total market penetration with nine out of ten Chinese possessing a mobile subscription. In India, however, market penetration is approximately 60-70 percent.

A collection of the new series of ZooZoo adverts can be viewed on YouTube here:

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