British telecom company Vodafone Plc announced the merger of its Indian wireless telephony businesses, with the Aditya Birla Group's Idea Cellular creating the largest telecom operator in the country, with a base of 400 million subscribers and 1,850 MHz of spectrum ownership. "India was earlier the jewel in our crown....
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,...
4G Subscribers in India Close to 70 Million
Reliance Jio claims to have signed up 52 million 4G subscribers since its official launch in September, while Airtel added nearly three million 4G users in the second half of the year, taking its total to 7.4 million. Idea Cellular at number 3 is forecast to have 4.2 million 4G...
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...
Vodafone India Gets Highest Ever FDI in Country
Vodafone India received fresh equity capital of $7.2 billion from British telecom player Vodafone Group. This is the largest-ever foreign direct investment in rupee terms in the country. The company will use the funds to strengthen its spectrum portfolio, network roll-out and retire debt, reports Business Standard. Sunil Sood, chief executive...