Lycamobile, global provider of low-cost international mobile calls to immigrant communities, has extended its relationship with the Chennai-based Plintron Global Technology with a five-year deal that will bring revenue of nearly $100 million.

The global partnership is to tap the ‘mobile virtual network aggregator' market that is pegged at $67 billion. The MVNA is a partnership between a ‘mobile virtual network operator' (Lycamobile) and mobile virtual network enabler (Plintron).

In the last one year, both companies have jointly commercialised the MVNA business model in the UK, according to Mr Mohan Kumar, CEO, Plintron. The partnership was built on the 14-country launch of Lycamobile's services and hosting on a private cloud-based mobile core network infrastructure, he told newspersons.

Mr Miling Kangle, Group CEO of the Euro-550-million Lycamobile, said that under the agreement the company will provide services such as regulatory compliance and getting licences for clients to launch mobile services in various countries while Plintron will provide the platform in the background. A client can launch a new service in less than six weeks while it may take 18-24 months if done by them, he told newspersons.

Lycamobile is a prepaid SIM card product that provides low-cost international calls direct from mobile phones. It is already distributed through a European network of over 3,00,000 retail outlets and the brand is one of the largest pre-pay international MVNO with 6.5 million customers across Europe and Australia. A new customer joins the Lycamobile family every 5 seconds, he said.

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