In my earlier report on Spice Tele, they had spoken about major expanison plans. But the latest corporate roadmap unveiled by Spice looks very ambitious. Telekom Malaysia, CEO Abdul Wahid Omar, has IPO plans. Spice has applied for NLD and ILD licenses as well. It also wants to expand in 6 more circles for which they have applied for licenses. However, their approval is dependent on the availabilty of spectrum and TRAI guideliness. Currently Spice has partnered with Idea cellular for romaing services except in the states of Punjab and Karnataka. After the entry of Telekom Malyasia, Spice is monetarily comfortable for expansion and can dare to have a bigger CAPEX account.
Can Spice really deliver ? They have been in Business in Karnataka since 1995 and still have a very small subscriber base of 0.46 milion users. While Bharti-Airtel has 2.4 Million subscribers in Karnataka. Also Bharti Airtel added 200,000 subscribers in May-2006, while Spice added mere 20,000customers. One would expect, more growth from Spice since it is smaller compared to other players, but that’s not happening. An IPO at this stage will most likely be a poor show and might get Thumbs Down from the investor.