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UAE’s Telecom Giant Etisalat Eyes Majority Stake in Mumbai’s Swan Telecom
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The Indian Telecom industry is abuzz with activity and we’ve been paying close attention to the details to bring you news as it happens (or in this case, as it is about to happen). Not too long after we reported that Norway’s Telenor and Japan’s NTT DoCoMo were ready to pick up stakes in the Indian Telecom Operators Unitech Wireless and Tata Teleservices respectively, we come across this report which talks about Etisalat who seems to be interested in picking up a majority stake in Mumbai’s Swan Telecom.
Etisalat (Emirates Telecommunications), which is one of the telecom giants in the UAE is almost done picking up a majority stake in Mumbai-based Swan Teecom, which is one of the six new telecom companies who have received licenses from the Indian Government to operate and service in the various telecom circles in India.
As per the information gathered from various industry sources, Etisalat has been longing to find itself an Indian partner to enter the fastest growing telecom market for the past 6 months. It seems that initial talks with Spice Communications and Datacom have failed and that the company is in the final stages of closing this deal. According to the report, Etisalat is all set to pick up a majority 51% stake in Swan Telecom.
However, it doesn’t seem to be an easy road for Etisalat to tread. India’s Foreign Direct Investment rules state that the Foreign Investment Promotion Board can refuse approval of a foreign investment from companies that operate in foreign unfriendly countries. This might just be the unwanted barrier for Etisalat, claims the paper, though it goes onto say that the same is being dismissed as a non-issue by many sources. The UAE giant has its operations in Pakistan.
This makes Etisalat among the many other global players who want to set foot in the Indian Market. Vodafone, Hutch, Orange have all eaten the pie while firms such as AT&T, ZTE, NTT DoCoMo, Telenor, France Telecom are starting to queue up to grab a bite. Indian companies such as Datacom (backed by Videocon) and Unitech Wireless (which in our last entry denied having finalized a player) are still looking to partner with international players, so they might just be the friend the international giants are looking for.
All this activity seems to have picked up a lot of pace after the announcement of 3G spectrum auction. The government has already initiated the auction process and the same are scheduled to be conducted in the coming weeks. BSNL has already begun testing their 3G services in the city of Pune, after it was allotted the spectrum along with MTNL. Are you ready for the 3G revolution yet?
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thanks