Bharti Airtel profits climb 51%
Bharti Airtel profits for the financial year ending March 2006 climbed 51% to Rs 2258 crores while revnues were higher by 46% at Rs11,663 crores. Bharti, CMD, Sunil Mittal is positive about Bharti’s growth for the next fiscal. He also announced a capex of $ 2 Billion.
Hindujas reject Hutchinson offer to buy 5.11%
Hutchinson which is in a major clean-up operation before its proposed IPO offered to buy Hindujas 5.11% stake in Hutch @ Rs2025 crores($450 Million). At the current offer price Hutch is valued at $9.0 Billion. At the end of March-2006, Hutch had a subscriber base of 90 Lakhs(9 Million) which translates to Rs45,000/subscriber, precisely the same amount which Egyptian Telecom major, Orascom paid to Huthch’s promoter, Hutchinson Whampoa group in January 2006. Hindujas valuation of Hutch is at the higher end, $12 Billion, which translates into Rs60,000/subscriber.
India’s numero uno integrated mobile service provider, Bharti Telecom enjoys a market capitalization of $17 Billion and has subscriber base more than twice that of Hutch and is also growing at a faster rate than Hutch. Also Bharti-Airtel offer Landline and Broadband services. Bharti-Airtel mobile business valuation translates to approximately Rs35,000/subscriber. Considering the valuation and growth rates Bharti-Airtel enjoy, Hindujas price tag of $12 Billion for Hutch is ridiculously high.
VSNL expanding in South Africa.
Tata’s controlled VSNL is planning to launch fixed line telecom services in South Africa reports PTI. Tata’s already own 26% stake in South African telco, SNO. It is hard to understand why Tata’s are in such a hurry to expand in South Africa when their is tremendous growth potential in the Indian Market, where they are far behind Bharti Telecom, Reliance Infocom and BSNL. Tata’s are well known to legally launder money from group companies. Only a microscopic view of Tata group balance sheet will expose which company is at loss for Tata’s expansion in South Africa. No Offence.
Mobile PolyTunes market expected to touch Rs750 crores
ET reports that the Mobile Music/Movies(Polytunes) market is expected to touch Rs750 crores by the end of this year. Once again leading the pack is Airtel with 33% of its subscribers already using this service. Check out their Airtel Live website.
MobileNXT chain of retail stores to open in India
Romy Juneja’s MobileNXT wants to setup country’s first chain of mobile retail offering mobile products, services and value addition through mobile stores. MobileNXT is targetting all tier-2 and tier-3 cities in India as Romy believes they are underserved. MobileNXT expects to achieve a turnover of Rs350 crores within the next 3 years and is backed by consortium of investors with $5 Million in investments. Their websites MobileNXT.com / MobileNXT.IN are still under construction.
Asian corridor(Bridge Mobile Alliance) reaches India.
I had earlier reported about the Asian corridor deram which Maxis, Singtel, Bharti and others are pursuing. It was formed under the brand name Bridge Mobile Alliance(BMA). BMA partners include CSL (Hong Kong), Globe Telecom (Philippines), Maxis (Malaysia), SingTel Mobile (Singapore), SingTel Optus (Australia), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan) and Telkomsel (Indonesia). It is interesting to see that Hutch has not yet joined the alliance nor their are any members from Japan. The alliance partners are pooling in $40 million to upgrade their infrastructure to be comaptible.
What BMA means to you ? As a subscriber, if you travel to any of the member countries, you are entitled for support on roaming and other technical issues. All the operators are sharing their content library for entertainment, with India’s Airtel leading the pack.
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