Sharat Jain has co-founded Online Recharge Services Private Limited, a provider of online recharge for prepaid services like mobile and DTH in India and their website RechargeItNow.com. Sharat Jain has previously held the position of CEO, Dentsu Media where he undertook many New Media and Mobile based advertising initiatives in India. He was also responsible for conceptualization and launch of LastMinuteInventory.com, world’s first multimedia on-line media trading platform. In an interview with India Digital Review, Jain discusses the story behind launching RechargeItNow and the company’s future plans.

RechargeItNow was launched in 2009. What was the idea behind launching RechargeItNow?

The idea behind launching RechargeItNow was to deliver convenience to users in recharging their mobile and DTH.  Hence we landed a 24x7, multi operator online prepaid instant recharge platform for customers pan India. We wanted to make the process of recharge extremely simple, intuitive and easy for any user who wanted to avail our services anytime and from anywhere in the country.

Which geographies have led the growth of this portal since launch?

We have a PAN India presence and have customers from almost every part of the country.  The top performing cities essentially get to be the ones with high internet penetration and IT infrastructure.  Cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangaluru, Chennai and Pune drive a large part of our transactions.

What is your revenue model? What are your revenue expectations this fiscal?

Our revenue model is focused on the margin from sale of recharge provided for both Mobile and DTH operators and the advertisement revenue from our website.

You were aiming at delivering Rs 100 crore of recharge per month in 2011. Have this been achieved? What is your goal for 2012?

We will close the financial year with over Rs 400 crore of revenue.  We are currently clocking around Rs. 50 crore per month and expect this number to increase to Rs 80 crore by the time we hit March 2012.

The portal had crossed the two million registered user mark in May 2011, out of these, how many are active users? What number of transactions do you get daily now?

In last 10 months, we have added over 2 million registered users taking our total registered user base to beyond 4 million.  This is staggering growth in terms of customer acquisition, especially when our cost of acquisition is almost negligible in a highly competitive environment with heavy spend levels from the new entrants. We get over 1.5 million active users per month on our website. Overall from our recharge platform we deliver 100,000 transactions per day.

Which service is most favoured by users – coupons, mobile recharges or DTH recharges?

The most favoured service on our website is mobile recharge.

What are your thoughts on competition especially when there are number of ‘me toos’ in this segment?

We are fundamentally an enterprise grade fully integrated platform with direct relationships with almost every operator in the Mobile and DTH space.  This gives us the vantage point to have a complete 360 degree view of each transaction and deliver a seamless recharge every time.

We have been consistently delivering over 100,000 transactions daily, have the largest user base, unparalleled 50 per cent click to buy ratio, extremely low bounce rates – all ingredients that will help us maintain the number one slot in the recharge domain. Our biggest strength is our customer base with which we have been able to build a sustained trust centric relationship.

What is your funding status? Plans to raise funds?

We are still a promoter funded company and generating profits consistently. We may need external funding to essentially boost growth and to add new services for our existing and new user base.

In MVAS, there is a thought that ‘the service provider takes it all and we don’t get decent money on transactions’. What is your take on this? How are you maintaining the margins?

So far we haven’t faced any problem as such.  We have been maintaining our margins and consistently making profits since October 2010.

Any consumer focussed internet company now-a-days promotes itself on TV. What are your plans on this?

We are essentially an ROI focused company.  We focus more in sustained and efficient ways of reaching the target audience and delivering the consistency in user experience.  Our audience is primarily online and as off now we are more focused on reaching out to them online.

What are your thoughts on service ecommerce Vs product ecommerce?

We are a service oriented ecommerce site and clearly experience an advantage over a product centric site. We enjoy a higher control over delivery of the service to the consumer, the delivery is instantaneous, the logistical support is extremely low and customer support is faster.

What are your future plans for RechargeItNow?

We have experienced rapid and sustained growth over the last 2 years.  Our future plans include ramping up our customer base and adding more services on the platform.