Telenor's Game Plan for Indian Market

Date:   Monday , November 02, 2009

Norwegian telecom firm Telenor is set to roll out its pan-India operations by the year-end under the brand UniNor. The company’s operations in India will be done through Unitech Wireless, in which it holds a 67.25 percent stake. Telenor bought 60 percent in Unitech Wireless for Rs. 6,120 crore in October 2008.

“We are structuring our operations in such a way that our core earnings will break-even in three years. We are targeting an operating cash flow break-even in about five years from the launch,” says Fredrick Baksaas, President and CEO, Telenor.

The company will invest Rs. 2,500 to 3,200 crore in India in FY09. “The Indian business model is different. This is the cheapest network that we will deploy,” says Baksaas.

Telenor’s Indian arm has inked a deal with Tata-Quippo for sharing infrastructure, entered an agreement with Wipro to manage its IT services, and awarded contracts for network equipment to Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, and Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks.