New Delhi-based telecommunications company Bharti Airtel Limited sold a 10.3% stake in its tower arm subsidiary Bharti Infratel to private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts (KKR) and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) for $951.6 million. Bharti Infratel owns over 90,000 telecom towers and the company reported a revenue...
Airtel to Buy Telenor India
New Delhi headquartered telecom service provider Bharti Airtel will acquire Telenor’s India operations in a no-cash deal. However, it will take on the latter’s spectrum liabilities toward the government amounting to nearly $240 million, (Rs 1,600 crore) payable in installments till 2026. The Airtel-Telenor deal is subject to regulatory approvals,...
Vodafone Confirms Merger Talks with India's Idea Cellular
U.K.'s Vodafone confirmed it was in talks to merge its Indian subsidiary with its local rival in an all-share deal. A possible merger between the country’s No. 2 provider Vodafone India and its third largest, Idea Cellular Ltd., will create a subscriber base of 395 million subscribers propelling Vodafone to first...
PwC Spells Out Telecom Trends in 2017 for India
Arpita Pal Agarwal and her team at PricewaterhouseCoopers, India forecast 5 trends in India's telecom industry for 2017: Data Markets - With the entry of Reliance Jio a price war has begun in the telecom industry. The subsequent increase in data traffic will not compensate for the reduced data revenues,...
India's Telecoms React to Reliance Jio's Market Entry
To increase their user base to 10 million, Reliance Jio announced offered free voice calls, and low cost data plans for customers in India. To counter this offering, other telecom players such as Airtel, Vodafone, and state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) have announced similar plans to retain their own...
In India, 7 Telecom Firms Will Participate in Spectrum Auction
Seven telecom firms have applied to India's Department of Telecommunications to participate in the upcoming spectrum auction beginning October 1, and they have made a total earnest money deposit of over $2.3 billion to acquire rights to use spectrum in a number of frequencies. According to the amount of earnest...