Telekom Malaysia enters India
Telekom Malaysia has bought 49% stake in the Modi’s controlled Spice Telecom. Spice Telecom is a GSM operator operating in the circles of Punjab and Karnataka since 1995. Though Spice has competed well in Punjab it is far behind in the number of subscribers it has in Karnataka, a mere 400,000. Spice was in talks with Telekom Malaysia and Maxis since early Feburary this year. Telekom Malaysia paid $180 million for a 49% stake thus valuing Spice at $360 Million(Rs1600 crores). I learn from my insiders that Spice has added around 100,000 users in the past 3 weeks thus taking the total subscriber base to 19,00,000. Telekom Malaysia got a deal by just paying Rs8,400/subscriber while Maxis had paid Rs14,300/subscriber when it acquired Aircel.
Insiders tell me that Spice has been aggressively trying to market in rural areas and has also paid BSNL to acquire the required bandwidth. Spice hopes that the network upgradation will be completed by end of June.
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[...] Also in my earlier post, I had said that Spice had added 100,000 customers, while figures suggest that it is 113,137 customers in the states of Karnataka and Punjab [...]
[...] 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. [...]
[...] Telekom Malaysia, Maxis’ competitor on home turf, Malaysia, also has Indian operations in BK Modi controlled Spice Telecom. Results of Telekom Malaysia were not available. [...]