ET reports that Telekom Malaysia will take a 49% stake in Spice Telecom, with BK Modi retaining his 51% controlling interest.
Telekom Malaysia will be buying out Ashmore Investments and Deutsche Bank’s stake in the company, who had picked up the strategic stake held by Singapore-based Distacomm.
With the company’s net valuation pegged at roughly $400m, the cash transaction to the two exiting stakeholders could hover around $200m. Spice carries a debt burden of around $200m. It operates in Punjab and Karnataka circles and has 1.7m subscribers.
Telekom Malaysia has investments in Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The deal with Spice will provide the India entry strategy for Telekom Malaysia, which tried, but was unsuccessful in acquiring a stake in Idea Cellular in the wake of regulatory issues.
The deal comes within a month of another Malaysian telco Maxis buying a majority stake in Tamil Nadu’s Aircel.
In order to manage the spectrum bandwidth crunch, DoT is asking non-commercial users such as defence agencies to switch to wired communication and use optical cable.
It is not only the non-commercial users but also the private cellular operators who are hit by the spectrum crunch. DoT is asking them to exploit optical fibre resources to the utmost for establishing connection between towers. However, the department maintains that this does not force any operator to use cable only, it is a voluntary effort to cope up with the spectrum crunch.
The problem arose with the demand of defence agencies to avail the spectrum without any bias towards mobile operators. While defence forces are the largest users of the spectrum, mobile operators were experiencing degradation in the provided services due to the crunch. To address the shortage of spectrum, DoT is working on a detailed spectrum policy to release additional spectrum for operators.
The axis of the trouble is the frequency — the 1800 Mhz, 800 Mhz and 900 Mhz bands — allocated to mobile operators in the country. The same spectrum is also used by defence agencies leading to the crisis.
Source: EFY Times
- OneIndia becomes effective from March 1
Had gone to MTNL asking for a change of plan. But their computers are apparently not ready for it yet.
- Tata Tele may break even in mid-2006
Its user base is close to touching 5 million.
- SavaJe confirms partnership with HCL Technologies
To enhance engineering development resource for its Java ME-based operating platform for handsets.
- Kyocera gets Vishal Goyal to head sales
Will also oversee its two distributors, Brightstar Corporation and XL Telecom.
- Foxconn to set up base in Sriperumpudur
To manufacture mobile handset and other components at Nokia’s special economic zone.
- BREW applications launched at Globalcomm 2006
Indiagames’ Calendar 2006; eMbience’s Masttones, MastPix, Drinknation; Phoneytune’s astrology package, image morphing apps.
- Pixiem launches Wimbledon mobile game in India
Available on Reliance and Tata.
Taking stock of progress made on the telecom infrastructure front, through the eyes of the economic survey of 2005-06.
The last fiscal was another year of reckoning for the telecom sector. Explosive growth rate in the mobile telephony segment was almost counterbalanced by sedate growth of the fixed line and broadband businesses. Pressure on tariffs continued and this aided the improvement in teledensity.
The year also witnessed increasing gap between the urban and the rural teledensity. At the close of the year, while urban teledensity stood at around 33%, rural teledensity was a low 2%. India currently has a telecom subscriber base of 126 m, including 78 m mobile subscribers and 48 m fixed line subscribers, with an over penetration level of 11.3%.
The economic survey states that the increasing penetration of mobile phones has been brought about by rising income levels, increasing need to be ‘on the move’, and of course, from the service providers’ side, the lowering capital costs of establishing a mobile telephony network. The economy survey indicates that by the end of 2007, Indian’s telecom base has the potential to cross 250 m.
However to reach this target, we believe that a large amount of investment is required. Opening up of the sector to greater FDI is a right move in that direction. As a matter of fact, the total FDI approved for the telecom sector up to September 2005 was Rs 415 bn, including investments from behemoths like Hutchison, SingTel, AT&T and Vodafone.
Source: Equitymaster.com
According to a report in ET, Bharti Tele-Ventures is set to merge its mobile and fixed line businesses. This is in line with Bharti’s One Airtel initiative, which had earlier seen the company merge the distribution arms of both companies.
“Due to the merger of Infotel and mobility, certain adjustments, restructuring and redesignations are bound to take place,” Sunil Mittal told ET.
As a result of this massive restructuring, due to be announced soon, top-level changes are taking place, along with new role definitions and job rotations.
Badri Agarwal, president, Infotel (fixed line business) and a trusted aide, will move to the corporate group and work closely with chairman Sunil Mittal.
The Bharti HQ is rife with speculation that the current joint MDs Akhil Gupta and Rajan Mittal will assume the roles of CEO and vice-chairman, respectively.
Vinod Sawhny, executive director (mobility), western regional hub, will be redesignated within the organisation as head of long distance and enterprise solutions business. Jayant Khosla, COO of Mumbai circle, is also likely to be elevated.
Another key appointment will be that of Sanjay Kapoor, who is currently president & CEO of TeleTech Services India — a 50:50 JV between Bharti and US-based TeleTech — which is engaged in customer management solutions. Mr Kapoor is expected to take over as head of the mobile business.
Industry sources said that some executives are also expected to leave the organisation as a fallout of this reshuffle.
The names of the executives who may be on their way out include Rajan Swaroop, executive director (mobility), eastern regional hub, Deepak Gulati, COO (mobility), Punjab circle, Mrinal Roy, COO (mobility), West Bengal circle, V Subba Rao, COO (mobility), Kolkata, and Mohit Bhatnagar, head of the value-added services.
Coruscant Tec has announced the availability of Uncle Pai’s comics on Tata Indicom in English and Hindi versions.
The first application in the series will contain delightful stories of two boys, Chhotu and Bittu, who use their wits to tame a fierce tiger in the tales “Chhotu Tames a Tiger” and “The Tiger in a Cage.” The applications will also be available in other Indian languages including Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Bengali and Punjabi.
Ajay Adiseshann, managing director for Coruscant Tec:
“Comics have proven to be an established entertainment medium for children and adults throughout the world, and Uncle Pai has a large following in the Indian popular culture community. We have successfully leveraged a winning combination of the right content, platform and service provider to deliver entertainment to the end user.”
Uncle Pai’s comics are very popular among kids. I have grown up learning about Indian culture through Amar Chitra Katha and reading comics with Indian backdrop like Tinkle etc. I hope the contract with Tata is not exclusive for long and Uncle Pai is available to a larger audience soon.
Source: Press Release
Business Standard reports that mobile content aggregator Mauj Telecom has received an investment from leading venture capitalist WestBridge Capital Partners.
Even though the exact investment size could not be ascertained, it is slated as one of the major deals in the domestic mobile value added services (VAS) market.
WestBridge Capital Partners is a leading venture capital fund with over $350 million under its management. This is the second investment by WestBridge in an Indian company, the earlier being in Nazara, another Mumbai-based mobile content company.
Mauj Telecom is a provider of mobile content and applications (like games, wallpapers, ringtones, news and matrimonials), mobile software and services (middleware solutions, roaming applications and SMS gateways) and mobile media solutions (advertising and branding).
Mauj is the wireless division of the People Infocom, which owns portals like Shaadi.com and Fropper.com.
Idea Cellular has won the GSM Association award in the “Best Billing or Customer Care Solution” category at the recently concluded 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
The award was presented for its “Bill Flash” service.
“Bill Flash” is a USSD based application wherein the customer dials a five digit string (eg *111# in Delhi) and gets his ‘Unbilled Amount and Billing Information’ as a flash on his handset screen within 30 seconds - even while roaming!
Idea becomes the first Indian operator to have won a GSM Association award ever since the establishment of awards in 1995.
GSM Association (GSMA) is the global trade organisation for more than 670 mobile operators and leading manufacturers and suppliers that serve more than 1.5 billion users across more than 200 countries of the world. The GSM community accounts for 75% of the digital mobile phone market worldwide.
Source: ET
Giving a facelift to his telecom venture ahead of its March listing, Reliance Communication Ventures Ltd has kicked off a series of measures, writing off crores of rupees worth bad debts and announcing a whopping Rs 310 crore as net profit for the quarter ending December 2005.
RCVL is the holding company of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group’s communication businesses which includes Reliance Infocomm and Reliance Communications Infrastructure.
The company posted a net profit of Rs 51 crore on a turnover of Rs 5,387 crore in ‘04-05. The previous year, ‘03-04, it had a loss of Rs 170 crore on a turnover of Rs 2,707 crore.
Related: Pre-IPO moves by Reliance
In a bid to further lower the entry-level for consumers, Reliance Infocomm has cut the costs of handsets by a whopping 40% for black and white instruments and 15% for the colour ones.
The company is offering its base model - an LG 2340 black and white handset - for Rs 1,500, a 40-per cent price cut from the previous Rs 2,500.
The slash in prices range from handset to handset, with the overall reduction ranging from 15 to 40 per cent, according to sources in the company.
Reliance is also offering a 15-per cent reduction on LG colour handsets, mainly for an LG 5340, which is available for Rs 4,500. After the 15-per cent reduction the price would come down to Rs 3,800, they said.
This follows the company’s launch of the One India campaign and SMS schemes, which saw it adding a million customers each in the last two months.
Source: Business Standard
The world’s third-largest mobile phone maker, Samsung has announced that its Indian handset plant has begun production.
Samsung’s $15 million-plant on the outskirts of New Delhi will produce 1 million units per year, and capacity will be ramped up to 20 million units annually by 2010. It will act as a sourcing hub for Southwest Asia.
“Our unit … will not only provide us the price advantage to produce locally but will also reduce time to market for our new models,” H.C. Ryu, managing director at Samsung Telecommunication, said in a statement.
Samsung has less than 10% share in the Indian handset market. Leading the colour phone segment, it was a strong challenger to Nokia’s dominance in the Indian market a few years back. I don’t know the reasons behind its fall from No. 2 position in India, but it surely allowed Sony Ericsson to increase their market share and race ahead.
Related: Mobile manufacture banks on India
ET reports that he Hutchison Essar-BPL Mobile merger in the Mumbai circle has hit a roadblock as the composite (direct plus indirect) foreign shareholding in Hutch is said to be around 77%, which is in excess of the allowed 74% FDI limit.
The foreign shareholding in the holding companies owning stakes in telecom operators count towards the 74% limit. However, this may not be a major deterrent as it is a procedural matter which is likely to be resolved over the next few weeks.
The Hutch-BPL Mobile merger will be the first intra-circle merger in the country. Hutch is the largest cellular operator in Mumbai, while BPL ranks second.The Hutch-BPL Mobile merger needs to comply with regulations on intra-circle mergers that stipulate that the merged entity cannot have more than two-thirds market share in terms of subscriber numbers. Mumbai has six mobile players and the total market share of the merged entity is expected to be over 50%, but under 66%.
The merger of other BPL Mobile’s three state circles (Maharashtra & Goa, Tamil Nadu & Pondicherry, and Kerala) with Hutch was, however, completed on January 2, ’06. Before the merger Hutch had no presence in these circles.
Reliance Infocomm has decided to write-off Rs 4,500 crore for liabilities relating to “regulatory and taxation matters, bad debts and irrecoverable amounts, obsolete and slow moving inventories and impairment of assets.”
The Boards of Directors of Reliance Infocomm and Reliance Communications Infrastructure Ltd, the two major operating companies under Reliance Communications Ventures Ltd, approved the write-offs at its meeting on Monday.
Post write-offs and provisions, the proforma consolidated networth of Reliance Communications Ventures Ltd stands at about Rs 11,000 crore. Reliance Communications Ventures is scheduled to be listed on the bourses on March 6, 2006, subject to necessary approvals.
Source: ET
Nokia will start distributing mobile phones in India on its own and split the phone distribution business with its current distributor HCL Infosystems.
The Espoo, Finland-based Nokia, which will begin distributing wireless handsets in India for the first time, will take away about 50% of the phone distribution business from HCL Infosystems in about two years, Ajai Chowdhry, chief executive officer of HCL, said in an interview.
HCL Infosystems extended the agreement to distribute Nokia handsets for a period of five years. As per the agreement, it will not be able to sell mobile phones of any other company.
HCL Info is one of the largest players in IT hardware manufacturing and marketing. The company ventured into sales of mobile handsets in the nineties after the telecom market started expanding rapidly. Its revenues from handset sales account for about 70% of sales.
The company expects surging growth in the mobile-phone market to make up for lost business. However with Nokia itself handling part of the distribution, HCL Info’s business may decline considerably. HCL shares plunged 30% to levels around Rs 180 on Monday, reacting to the news. The company lost Rs 1,300 crore in market value as a result.
HCL Info has set up a nationwide network of service centres to offer after sales service on Nokia mobile handsets. The service network is under a 100 per cent subsidiary, HCL Infinet, and currently has more than 200 such centres.
Nokia is estimated to have a market share of around 70% in India. The company’s market share had come down significantly during the period 2001-2003, with Korean companies like LG and Samsung gaining. However, Nokia has made a strong comeback in the last couple of years by launching a wide range of products including handsets specially designed for the country.
With the government clearing foreign direct investment in single-brand retail, Nokia could not have found a more opportune time to get going on its own.
Source: DNA
Bangalore based mobile handset and VAS infrastructure solutions provider Jataayu Software has released the jB5 web browser for mobiles with its Adaptive Rendering Technology (ART) and has reported winning the first major customer for it.
This will help mobile users receive pushed content, confirmed downloads and even use voice over IP to make calls over the Web. Unlike other browser offerings in the market today, jB5 with ART does not stop at supporting only the standards and specifications that govern the Internet world, but adds significant new functionality for providing a truly mobile experience, by supporting the OMA standards as well, said the release issued by the company.
The company has announced a partnership with an Israeli software company eSIM, to offer a handset application software framework that will bundle eSIM’s man-machine interface technology software with Jataayu’s handset application suite.
The company announced earlier this week that an Asian handset ODM had chosen its software suite to be included in its range of 3G phones. eSIM was responsible for this big win.
Jataayu also announced that Taiwan-based Gigabyte had chosen its MMS client technology for its latest handset.
Gigabyte’s g-Smart is the first PDA phone featuring TV. Besides being a basic PDA, it is equipped with Bluetooth, WiFi , and an English-Chinese dictionary.
- Siemens plans to set up manufacturing base in India
Telecom minister Maran said on the sidelines of 3GSM Congress.
- Megasoft to launch NexGen convergent platform
Provices MVNO customers an integrated service experience that is independent of the network and location.
- Pak awarded GSM’s Govt Leadership Award for telecom revolution
Pakistan has 20 million mobile users and over 13% mobile penetration in 2005.
- Kavveri Telecom to acquire Canadian firm Wi-LAN Inc TIL-TEK Antenna division
Company recently got orders from Reliance Info, Alcatel, World Space for supplying RF products and antennae.
- Sania Mirza unveils Sony Ericsson’s tennis phone editions
Handsets part of WTA Tour limited edition are K750i, K600i, Z520i, K700i, K300i.
- Airtel’s double full talktime plan
Monthly rental Rs 300, one-time fees of Rs 250 each as membership and activation charges, talktime worth Rs 600.
Reliance Telecom, the GSM services arm of ADAE group which also owns CDMA provider Reliance Infocomm, has put together a network and infrastructure equipment deal worth under $100 million with Motorola.
As part of the deal, Motorola is expected to supply mobile switches, 3,000-4,000 base stations and related infrastructure to Reliance Telecom at one of the cheapest prices quoted for GSM equipment in India.
Motorola’s equipment will come with switches made by Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei. It is being speculated that the Huawei component is at a rock bottom $2 per subscriber at the switch level, when compared with over $10 in the international market.
According to international market prices, a base station can cost between $150,000 and $180,000. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has estimated the cost of a base station at about $160,000.
The equipment deal comes even as sources in the industry said the company was in talks with China Mobile (Hong Kong) to offload stake in Reliance Telecom. Recently, Russia’s AFK Sistema has also evinced interest in the company.
Reliance Telecom, with 1.73 million subscribers across eight circles, is looking at a sizeable expansion of its services. It provides mobile services in West Bengal, Kolkata, Bihar, Assam, the Northeast, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh.
Reliance Telecom, the undivided Reliance group’s first foray into telecom in 1995, had a market share of 2.79% in January 2006.
The days of those irritating and unwanted calls from telemarketers trying to sell you a credit card or a personal loan seem to be numbered. Top cellular operators are moving to weed out telemarketing calls from their networks.
The initiative to weed the ‘menace’ out also comes at a time when the Supreme Court is expected to hear a PIL against telemarketing next month. Often phone companies themselves are suspected of peddling customer data to marketmen for a consideration - a charge they have consistently denied. What raises suspicions are spam calls which greet you with your name soon after you take a new connection!
Airtel president Manoj Kohli has written to the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), the GSM industry lobby group, to convene an urgent meeting of the operators and work on ways to penalise telemarketers ‘‘who are creating a negative image of mobile companies’’.
‘‘Such calls are originating on behalf of reputed banks, credit card companies and for promotion and marketing of other products and services. We have already urged such entities to check their activities, including sending them legal notices,’’ Kohli has said.
Source: ET
US based NMS Communications, a provider of infrastructure technologies and applications platforms to operators has acquired Bangalore based Openera Technologies, a provider of mobile application handset solutions for converged mobile networks.
Completion of the transaction is expected to occur within the next few weeks, for consideration of $16.4 million in stock, approximately 51% of which is contingent upon the continued employment of key employees of Openera over the 30-month period following the closing.
Post-acquistion, NMS Communications will grow from around 340 employees (4 in India) to 410 employees, 70 of whom will be in India.
Jawad Ayaz, Openera founder and CTO
“The merger represents a strong validation of Openera’s market and technology leadership and of our core belief that world-class technology products can be conceptualized, designed and developed in India,”
Joel Hughes, Openera CEO
“With the resulting ability to deliver community-based mobile applications, multimedia personal communications, licensed and user-generated content applications and complete mobile marketing solutions, NMS will be uniquely positioned to provide mobile operators with the next generation of high-value applications and technology that have the greatest impact on their business.”
NMS had opened its India office last year after selling through distributors for many years. Their products are deployed in several operator networks, including Reliance Infocomm, Hutch, Airtel, and BSNL, enabling voice and data messaging, enhanced IVR, call personalization and mobile entertainment services.
Openera’s Mobile IMS Client serves as a single, simplified pathway for launching and managing it’s portfolio of presence-based applications, including Peer-to-Peer Video Sharing, Active Phone Book for community services, Push to Talk over Cellular and Instant Messaging. Openera’s SIP-based solutions enable the rapid delivery of these emerging IP multimedia communication services on mobile devices spanning 2.5G, 3G, IMS and WiFi networks.
Openera’s integrated portfolio of client-based 3G and IMS mobile applications for smart-phone and feature-phone platforms complements NMS’s network-based applications and technology to make it a end-to-end solution.
Thanx to Brough Turner for the tip.
We have been hearing this for a while. But its good news if it turns out to be true, so lets hear it again. Speaking at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Dayanidhi Maran said the thrust areas in telecom in the coming months includes putting in place the 3G policy by March-end.
Mr Maran said India was looking forward to early introduction of 3G services. “Given the low penetration of wireline broadband, I believe that 3G represents a great opportunity for the industry as well as the country, as it will be the platform on which mobile broadband can be delivered economically and efficiently to Indian consumers. I expect that by the end of this fiscal year we will have a firm and clear 3G policy in place under which not only will the interests of existing players be safeguarded, but we will also be looking at opening the door to new players.”
Source: Business Line
