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BSNL lines up $1.57 bn mobile expansion
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 07 April 2004, 19:30 IST
NEW DELHI: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, India's largest phone firm by sales, will spend 69 billion rupees ($1.57 billion) to expand its mobile base to 27.5 million users and double wireless sales in the world's fastest growing market.
Chairman Vijayendra Prasad Sinha told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday state-run BSNL, which has 5.23 million GSM mobile users, had floated a global tender worth Rs 62 billion for GSM equipment that would be deployed mainly in urban areas.
"Already equipment for three million additional lines is coming. Our user base will cross 10 million during this calendar year and by December 2005, we should have 25 million GSM users," Sinha said. The rest will be spent on CDMA networks.
He said the expansion will be financed through internal accruals and there were no plans for an initial public offering at the moment.