Why SingTel wants to exit Bharti ?
Warburg Pincus one of the most successfull VCs that backed Bharti Telcom since the beginning was consistently selling its stake and completely exited with it’s last 4.4% stakesale to Vodafone in Q4-2005. Now it is reliably learnt that SingTel has hired a merchant banker to value its whopping 31% stakeContinue Reading
Maxis eyeing Spice ?
Earlier I reported that Maxis Telecom promoted by Malaysian billionaire Anand Krishnan had bought a majority stake in Aircel. Maxis having entered India through Tamilnadu now wants to consolidate further in Karnataka and Punjab by buying out B.K.Modis out of Spice Telecom. Modis hold 51% stake in Spice. Maxis is alsoContinue Reading
Bharti Telecom concealed Rs2200 crores (USD 500 Million) losses ?
A major TV channel reported that Bharti Televenture had accumulated losses of Rs2200 crores which were hidden by intelligent accounting practices. PTI release says Bharti executives have confirmed that their was nothing wrong in their acounting procedures and have even got Vodafone to back their statement(Vodafone, in October – 2005 bought 10%Continue Reading
Cell phones ring with vegetable vendor; Big push planned by Reliance & Tata.
Very soon you will hear echoes in your vegetable market like, “Suniye, Suniye….., Reliance Mango Hungama; 1000 rupiah aam lou aur 100 rupiah cell phone call mufat karo” (Translated in English – Reliance Mango offer; Buy Mangoes worth Rs1000 and get to make 100 rupees worth cell phone calls freeContinue Reading
Talk like an Egyptian says Orascom Telecom to Indians
Orascom of Egypt controls upto 65% of Pakistan’s and 8% of Bangladesh’s cell phone market. It paid USD 1.3 Billion to buy 19.3% stake in HTIL – Hutchinson Telecom International Limited. HTIL is a subsidary of Hutschinson Whampoa group. HTIL operates with various Indian partners with Essar being the majorContinue Reading
Indian Cell subscribers growth to help double GSM handset sales globally in 2006
Continued growth in GSM subscribers in India during the last quarter of 2005, has reason for one Finnish company to keep smiling – Nokia. Nokia expects its handset sales to be close to 900 million units in 2006. Continued co-operation from the government by reducing import duty on handsets fromContinue Reading
AOL Calendar & Google’s deal, An Insider’s view
As Infoworld reports that AOL is testing new AOL calendar, webmail and a toolbar for firefox browser. Their couldn’t have been a better time to report this development. Just a day after the Billion Dollar Google AOL deal. I am not going to talk about the deal as more thanContinue Reading
Pre-diwali dhamaka in subscriber growth continues through Xmas.
The pre-diwali subscription addition is showing no signs of slow down. Most of the additions were in the Cellular category with Wireless in Local Loop(WLL – something very popular in the Indian Convergence story) securing second place ahead of Land lines. 37.9 lakh new connections were added for month endingContinue Reading
Aircel’s Sivsankaran hits another JackPot!
C Sivsankran is an ambitious and cut-throat business man. ET reports that he is hitiing the JackPot again.(Recollect he has already built and sold DishNetDSL to Tatas after he was unsuccessful to win controlling stake in VSNL from the Government of India). He was in talks with the Hutchinson group earlierContinue Reading