uninor

Uninor Won’t Shut Shop, Will Bid In New 2G Auction

by Paul Joseph February 8, 2012 Featured

With the 2G Spectrum Auction being considered null and void, and a new 2G Spectrum Auction being reordered, number of firms were severely affected. However, out of the 22 Licenses which were cancelled, Uninor was affected the most. They had, by far, the maximum number of users on their newly formed network and had the most to lose. Uninor  is a joint venture between  Unitech Group and Telenor . They employ over 17,000 people and have 36 million customers. In a short amount of time, they managed to make a place for themselves in the market by competing  almost solely on price. They have one of the lowest Average Revenues Per Customer (ARPU). With a focus on Voice services instead of data, Uninor did not participate in the 3G Spectrum Auction. On the cancellation of the 2G licenses, Uninor has threatened to shut shop and quit the Indian market and challenge the cancellation in a international court. However, given that they are in over 13 Circles and have 1900 distributors country wide, it is not such an easy thing to do. Now Uninor seems to have softened their stance of leaving the Indian market. Says Uninor MD and Telenor’s Asia head, Sigve Brekke, “ In principle we will go for auction but I am not saying that whether we will win everything … So, the option of exit cannot be ruled out. We will be coming out with advertisement for our customers assuring that we are very much here. This means we will continue to serve our 36 million customers , work with our 22,000 partners and keep building our presence in the market .” Interestingly, the Norweigan Government has a 54% stake in Telenor and hence pressure on India to stay the cancellation is not unlikely. In fact, Norway’s IT minister, Rigmor Aasrud met Kapil Sibal, to discuss the Supreme Court’s cancellation of licenses. Aasrud said in a statement,“ We had a fruitful and constructive mee Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

Tagged as: events, features, international, mobile, news, sibal, telenor, uninor

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Indian Mobile Subscriber Base Touches 884.37Million, Says TRAI

by Paul Joseph January 10, 2012 Featured

According to data released by TRAI, Telecom companies added somewhere around 2.74 million new subscribers in last November. This brings the number of mobile users in the country to 917.33 million . The mobile subscriber base was on the increase since last year and grew by 0.34% in the month of November itself. The number of subscribers in the country now stands aka  total of 884.37 million users .The data also says that Telecom companies had added as many as  7.79 million subscribers in the preceding month of October. The Teledensity of the country now stands at 76.18% . Teledensity is the measure of the number of telephones in use for every 100 individuals living within an area. The increase in this particular quantity can be used a measure to define the development of the country. Normally developed countries have a teledensity of more than hundred which means phones outnumber people. Our Teledensity shows that we are inching closer to being a developed nation soon. This is a hopeful sign. If we have to break the addition of subscribers down we can see that most Telecom companies have done well this month with Idea Cellular adding 2.17 million new users and growing its total user base to 10.39 million. Bharti Airtel increased their subscriber count by 0.96 million people making their total 174.69 million people. Vodafone added almost the same number of people as Airtel (0.92 million) which takes their total to 146.84 million. Uninor, Aircel and RCom added 1.86, 0.67 and 1.01 million people respectively. MTNL has managed to add 31,787 new people in November. Tata Teleservices and BSNL lost  4.44 and 0.18 million users in the month of November. With Mobile Number Portability (MNP) allowing people to switch between carriers, it is slowly becoming more popular and Telecom companies are trying their best to provide good service and retain their customers. No company can afford to be careless with their customers now. What do you think? Do share you views with us. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Mergers On The Cards In Indian Telecom Sector TRAI Probes Into Alleged MNP Violations By Airtel & Vodafone MNP Seems To Be A No Go In India: Why The Lack Of Popularity? Airtel Has Highest Number Of Active Subscribers, What About The Rest? GSM Shows A Marginal Dip In August Subscriptions

Tagged as: airtel, mnp, mobile, news, rcom, telecom, uninor, vodafone

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Telenor Wants To Own 3/4th Of Uninor

by Paul Joseph November 30, 2011 Featured

Telenor has approached Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) with its plans to increase its shareholding percentage in Uninor to 74%. After the amendment of Mergers & Acquisitions rules by TRAI comes through, Telenor, who currently owns 67.25% stake in the  Uninor Mobile service, has written to FIPB that it wants to increase its stake to 74% . This is coincidentally the upper-most peak that any Foreign company is allowed under Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) rules. All is not well in the Uninor marriage with Telenor wanting a Rights Issue (IPO) & Unitech firmly opposing it. Unitech, on-the-other-hands wants the firm to raise money through the Banks (Debt Issue). Hence, Telenor has clearly indicated that it wants to induct another partner (industry sources say Aircel) if Unitech does not participate to the Rs. 8,250 Crores rights issue. With over 200 Million subscribers worldwide Telenor is one of the largest mobile service companies in the world. It had entered in India with a Joint Venture (JV) with Realty firm Unitech. The brand Uninor came into existence in 2009 & has been steadily adding customers. In fact, recent report confirms that its subscriber base is growing at a higher rate than even Vodafone, which is not in a good shape anyways. The Rights Issue, which is the core point of discontent, has already received the relevant clearances from the Central Government dept. that approves all major investments from abroad. Last month, the Unitech group dragged Telenor before the Company Law Board (CLB) citing ‘Gross Mismanagement ‘ by the Norwegian telco. The two are also involved in an arbitration process in Singapore. Uninor had earlier proposed to buy out Telenor’s 67.25% stake in their JV for Rs. 269 Crores , which apparently was refused by Telenor & started the rift. We feel it is strange that a company growing well, should have such bitter differences among themselves. Guess it’s not easy to operate a Mobile Service company in India. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

Tagged as: aircel, funding, international, joint venture, mobile, news, telenor, uninor, unitech, vodafone

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Uninor To Introduce Operator Billed Android Apps

by Paul Joseph November 17, 2011 Featured

Android has become the fastest growing mobile operating system in the world. It is gaining a lot of traction in the Indian mobile market with player like Samsung, LG, Motorola, Hauwei, Spice and Micromax cozying up to the operating system. There are more and more apps being launched everyday by many services in India compared to the iOS ones. The app market is growing at a crazy speed globally and is projected to get in revenues of $35 billion dollars by 2014. Now it is the turn of telecom companies to make good use of the growing demand of apps. Uninor, an Indian telecom company has promised to provide selected and continually updated apps on the front page of Android market in 2012. Uninor is owned by Telenor, a global telecom company which has entered into a global agreement with Google with a view to make the Android Ecosystem rock-solid. Jon Fredrik Baksaas, President & CEO, Telenor Group commented on the agreement with Google by saying, ” This deal between Google and Telenor is designed to inject even more energy into the Android ecosystem. Most importantly, it means that millions of Telenor customers will experience easier access to more and richer mobile content, as well as flexible payment solutions .” This agreement means that users of Uninor will be able to buy and pay the network provider directly for the downloaded apps. This makes the whole app buying experience smoother which otherwise requires the use of your credit card. This will drive up the app adoption in India by a huge margin. The company will be launching the its services first in Thailand, Malaysia, Hungary, Sweden and Denmark by early 2012.   Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

Tagged as: features, international, mobile, mobile operating system, news, technology, tie ups, uninor, web

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New M&A Rules Proposed By TRAI To Benefit Telenor

by Paul Joseph November 14, 2011 Featured

TRAI has proposed new rules or rather amendment of old rules regarding Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) which are believed to be beneficial for Norwegian mobile operator Telenor ASA. The proposed rules allows the companies to merge  if their combined subscriber or revenue market share does not exceed 60% , provided, the companies get a consent from TRAI if the created company has a market share between 35% and 60% . No consent is required if the market share is below 35% . These relaxations will surely help troubled Telenor, who is looking for a third partner (rumored to be Aircel); after Unitech who holds 32.75% stake, in comparatively small mobile company Uninor. Telenor’s CEO and President Jon Fredrik Baksaas called the rules “ fair ” and “ reasonable ” & added “ Every market has its framework for competition setup. The way things are spelt out now seems to be fairly reasonable .” Uninor, which currently operates in 13 Circles is under investigation in the 2G Scam & its “ Rights issue ” (IPO) too has failed to take-off owing to Unitech insistence ( via court), that Uninor be funded through the Debt route (Bank Funding’s), while Telenor wants to rest its fate in the hands of Indian investors (Equity). While companies are growing through alternative channels , Uninor is embroiled in legal wrangles & small subscriber base. Do you think these rules will positively impact Uninor or it should focus harder on retaining the fleeing customers ? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

Tagged as: aircel, funding, jon fredrik baksaas, mobile, news, telenor, trai, uninor, unitech

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Telecom Tales: 2 Lakh New GSM Subscribers For Each Day Of September 2011

by Paul Joseph October 20, 2011 Featured

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has released statistics  on the GSM Subscriber Base for the month of September 2011. India’s Telecom Sector has been seeing extraordinary growth month by month, and this month was no different.  Here are some interesting and relevant statistics from the Report: As of September 2011, there are a total of 618.28 million GSM Subscribers Out of these, 6.52 Million new subscribers were in September 2011 This comes to a stunning 2 Lakh new subscribers per day! Biggest Winner in number of new subscribers: Uninor with 1.92 Million Market Leader: Bharti Airtel with 172.79 million subscribers Uninor coming in first place will come as a surprise for many, as conventionally it was the larger operators who were amassing new subscribers the fastest. Idea too got an impressive 1.72 Million new subscribers. Compared to them, Telecom Giants  Airtel and Vodafone added 0.935 and million and 0.848 million new subscribers respectively. You can download the report in its entirety from here . What do you make of these statistics? Do you think the smaller operators will make a comeback, or will Vodafone and Airtel’s market share go unchallenged in the months to come?  Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

Tagged as: airtel, coai september, events, mobile, news, uninor, vodafone

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‘Wellness World’, A Health Tool For All Uninor Subscribers

by Paul Joseph May 12, 2011 Featured

Last year we reported that pinkWhale , an e-Health company announced an online health service in India called ‘Call a Doc’. Now there is another new service called ‘ Wellness World ‘ which is a new health tool introduced by handygo and Uninor in India. Wellness World is all set to use IVR and SMS platform to provide relevant and valuable health information to all the Uninor subscribers. Health information such as Heart Care , Women’s Health , Diet and Nutrition , Pain management , HIV/STD’s , Stress , Love , Relationship , Adolescent issues , etc. This pan service in India is available in Hindi and English. To subscribe this service Uninor subscribers need to dial a code – 522770 . For IVR version- Customers can opt for subscription pack of Rs. 30 for 7 days which will entitle them to 30/7 free minutes. Or a simple SMS at Rs. 30/7 for 30/7 days will enable them to receive 2/1 SMS alerts per day. handygo Technologies have partnered with several hospitals like VIMHANS, GM Modi, Jaipur Golden Hospital, etc to ensure the information provided is relevant, accurate and upto date. We had earlier reported about a platform that solves all the health problem called MediAngels and we feel such services delivered through online media are beneficial to one and all. Introduction of Wellness World can be a good news for rural village people of India as these service is provided on mobile which has a good penetration in rural areas as well. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Handygo Ties-Up With Buzzintown To Provide City Information For Zing Subscribers Now Get Your Medical Treatments And Queries Solved On eHospital Rural VAS Update: Handygo Partners Tata Indicom Now Transfer Talk Time To Friends & Family Using Uninor Airtel And Uninor Join The Cricket Bandwagon With Special Offers

Tagged as: cricket, media, mediangels, news, queries-solved, sms, sms platform, uninor, wellness world

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Now Transfer Talk Time To Friends & Family Using Uninor

by Paul Joseph March 29, 2011 Featured

The telco’s continue to innovate in a bid to increase their subscriber count. Its no surprise though that the innovation is coming from the newer telco’s who seem to need the growth badly. So here is a new launch by Uninor that makes transfering talk time to friends and family a reality. Uninor today announced the launch of a very unique and innovative offer christened “Talk Time Transfer” for its customers in Bihar and Jharkhand. This facility allows Uninor pre-paid subscribers to “transfer as well ask” for talk time to their family, friends or associates in-case of a requirement. The talk time can be asked even at zero balance which makes this feature even more useful. Currently this feature allows subscribers to transfer amounts ranging from a minimum of Rs. 5 to a maximum of Rs. 50 at one go upto a maximum of 7 such transactions per day. Currently this feature is only available in Bihar. The way a Subscriber can transfer is by dialing *202**#. Talktime can be asked by dialing * 201**# . This does put talktime in the context of currency. Though mobile banking regulations don’t allow it currently but one does wonder if ever talk time could be traded for realtime goods and services. Nevertheless it will be interesting to watch if this trend spreads to other circles and operators. Showcase Your Digital Work Here! Win An Award! Log onto WATAwards Related Posts Airtel And Uninor Join The Cricket Bandwagon With Special Offers Airtel Has Highest Number Of Active Subscribers, What About The Rest? Telenor To Sweat It Out In India Telenor – Indian Telecom Sector This Decade’s Dot Com Bubble? Mergers On The Cards In Indian Telecom Sector

Tagged as: cricket, decade, family talktime, feature, friends, india, Indian, indian-telecom, mobile talktime, uninor, uninor-join

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Airtel Has Highest Number Of Active Subscribers, What About The Rest?

by Paul Joseph February 11, 2011 Featured

Sometime back in July last year, we covered a story on the growth of mobile subscribers in India. Adding onto this, a recent TRAI report also said that there were 752.19 million subscribers in December 2010. But are all of these active? Certainly not if we have to go by the report that says only 70% of the subscribers are active. And Bharti Airtel has emerged as the top player having maximum number of active subscribers’ base. The Business Standard reported of the India’s largest telecom operator having as many as 91.8 % subscribers active. Next to Airtel is Idea Cellular with 90 % active subscribers in its network. Vodafone, on the other hand, scores abysmally low with less than 76% active users in its home network. State owned BSNL and MTNL have 57% and 35.6 % active subscribers in respectively in their GSM networks. The latter has just 27% in its CDMA network. It is quite surprising to know that new private entrants like Videocon, Etilasat, Uninor and MTS(Sistema Shyam) have fared quite well in the face of the government funded MTNL. They have registered 37%, 36%, 45% and 49% of active subscribers respectively. Tata Teleservices’ accounted for 49.7% active users for its Tata DoCoMo network (GSM) and 46.5% for its Tata Indicom network (CDMA). The following table from the TRAI report shows the detailed accounts of all the players in India. (Image Credit : TRAI report ) Coming to the circle-wise distribution, Jammu Kashmir, Assam and Maharashtra have the highest number of active mobile subscribers vis-à-vis other Indian states with 81.8%, 79% and 77.7 % respectively. However, Mumbai city ranked the lowest with 58% among others. The following is the circle-wise distribution of active subscribers of all Indian states. (Image Credit :  TRAI report ) Sify Finance reported of Bharti denying claims from other mobile operators that the company has inflated the numbers. In its statement, the company said, “ The latest TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) report on VLR (Visitor Location Register) numbers once again reiterates Bharti Airtel’s transparent reporting of customer numbers. With close to 92 percent active customer base, Bharti Airtel has ranked as the number one among all operators,”. It further added, “The Company’s subscriber base consisted of active users, unlike some of the other telecom firms who had a huge percentage of inactive SIM cards masquerading as subscribers.” Today, the telecom ministry of the government of India is boiling under 2G scam. And the much anticipated Mobile Number Portability (MNP) has failed to make a big influence on mobile subscribers ( at least for now). Around 17 lakh subscribers have applied for the MNP service. This is just about 0.2 % of the total mobile subscribers in the country. All in all, MNP has not yet become the game changer, as it was expected to be. So, the scenario now is not  so favorable for those operators which were possibly planning to lure customers by offering some happy-to-accept offers. For time being let us see how far Bharti is able to keep up with the figures today. What do you think? REGISTER FOR WATSUMMIT – INDIA’S FLAGSHIP SUMMIT ON DIGITAL MEDIA REGISTER NOW! Related Posts GSM Shows A Marginal Dip In August Subscriptions 3G Rollout Will See Telcos Working Together To Maximize Coverage Mobile Number Portability’s Data Churn And How Telcos Will Implement It! DoCoMo Initiated 1 paisa/sec Goes International Via Videocon – Call US, Canada October Telecom Stats: Subscriber Base At 52.56 Crores, Telecom Density Reaches 44.87 Percent

Tagged as: bharti-airtel, country, location, media, reports, tata docomo, uninor

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Telenor To Sweat It Out In India

by Paul Joseph October 7, 2010 Featured

Cut. Pain. Endure. Heal. This is the story of the Indian telecom sector. Last time around, Telenor was bleeding and we dripped that here . Now, it is not that it has stopped bleeding but the commitment to endure has come . Mr. Sigve Brekke, Asia Head and Managing Director of Indian Operations of the Telenor group, announced the change in strategy for the Indian market stressing on focusing on the mass market and thus, driving the voice service aggressively. Very honestly, I applaud this statement. It is very encouraging to see such visions where fundamentals of a market are stressed on to justify the business. The expansion will be funded through debt (Rs. 9,000 crore) which is not a big problem according to him as banks are seeing potential in the sector. The expectation of becoming EBIDTA positive in three years is substantial. EBIDTA is Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. Basically, it gives an idea of the company’s operating cash flow. This number is particularly important here because telecom is a sector with large fixed assets cost. Now, the value of these assets depreciates every year and that reflects on your balance sheet. Essentially, from an operating point of view depreciation is immaterial and so to objectively assess your operating revenues, you take the EBIDTA. Cash positive simply means that the company will be generating surplus cash atleast in the short term. The five year timeline is reasonable taking into account the EBIDTA positive expectation is in three years. Uninor (the joint venture between Telenor and Unitech) has seen a jump from 0.008 million new customers during May to 0.85 million new customers during July increasing its market share from 0.81% to 1.05% (Source: TRAI). Whether the endurance continues over to healing or a new cut spoils the recovery is a question of time which we’ll spill out as soon as it arrives. Attend Workshop On Social Media For Brands (Delhi & Mumbai) REGISTER HERE Related Posts Telenor – Indian Telecom Sector This Decade’s Dot Com Bubble? Bailout Alert – Govt. May Reduce Failing Telcos’ Pain Telenor may pick up 26% stake in Unitech Wireless for $500m; DoCoMo eyes Minority Stake in Tata Teleservices Mergers On The Cards In Indian Telecom Sector Mobile Social Networking – It’s Not a Fad!

Tagged as: attend-workshop, india, indian-telecom, news, trai, uninor

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