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DoCoMo to Move into India?
(15 Sep 2008, BWCS Staff)The largest mobile operator in Japan, NTT DoCoMo, is continuing its search for new foreign markets and seems set to land in India. According to press reports this morning, the giant telecom company is close to securing a 25% stake in Tata Teleservices. The deal could cost DoCoMo up to US$1.5 billion.
The unprofitable Tata is the fourth largest mobile operator in India with 27.33 million customers on its CDMA network - putting it behind Bharti Airtel with 72.07 million customers (at end of July 2008), Vodafone Essar with 50.95 million and Reliance Communications with 52.54 million subscribers. Tata has plans to launch a new GSM network in the near future. The news of DoCoMo's interest came after last week's denial by France Telecom that it was considering making a bid for a stake in Tata.
Earlier this year, Tata Teleservices signed a deal with Virgin Mobile to jointly launch a new mobile phone service in India. The service operates under the Virgin brand and is targeting the country's youth, aged between 15 and 30 years old. According to estimates this sector is around 400 million strong. Virgin will merely take a share of the revenue in return for Tata using its brand name.
According to the Indian telecoms watchdog, the TRAI, India added just over 100 million mobile users in a year. At the end of July 2008 the country was home to 296.08 million mobile customers compared to 192.98 million at the end of July 2007.
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