Telenor Wants to Enter into Indian Telecom Market in 2009

Asia's second-largest foreign telecom service provider, Telenor, is going to enter into Indian market pretty soon and the Norwegian company predicts it would require 3 years to start making operating profit in India. Seeing the extensive growth of Indian telecom market and slowing growth in other parts of the world, Telenor is now interested to grab a chunk of share in the fastest growing Indian telecom market. Despite seeing protests among the shareholders, Telenor is keen to own 60% stake of India's Unitech Wireless for $1.1 billion. Telenor will start its Indian operation in 2009. However, the company is still assessing the opinions of the shareholders.

In order to invest a huge amount for launching Indian operation, Telenor might cut dividends or sales assets like shares. However, Bangladesh’s top mobile pho9ne service provider Grameenphone, a subsidiary of Telenor, failed to achieve even half of its planned share sale this month because of economic slowdown globally. However, Telenor still wants to enter into Indian market, thinking that it would gradually make a strong base in Indian telecom market as it did in Bangladesh where it needed about 10 years to build a strong customer base.

I think, it would be a very good initiative for Telenor to come into Indian market, because it is still flourishing and will continue growing for a number of years. In fact, Telenor should have entered into India’s telecom market even few years back. However, it seems to be good that the Norwegian telecom company has at last understood the potential of Indian market.

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Reuters