telecom

Bharti Airtel has finalized $8.3 billion of funding for its acquisition of the African assets of Kuwait-based telecom major Zain. A consortium of banks led by Standard Chartered and Barclays would lend it $7.5 billion and State Bank of India (SBI) another $1 billion, a so-called rupee loan.

The financing was oversubscribed, with major international banks committing to underwrite the total amount. The company has opted for offshore loans over onshore loans owing to the good response from overseas banks. The dollar loan is expected to reduce risks involved in execution process.

Reliance Communications, India’s largest and only nationwide operator offering both GSM and CDMA mobile services, has crossed the landmark of 100 million customers for its wireless services with the target of doubling the number over the next three years making it the second largest wireless operator in the country. Without any hesitation we believe that majority of 100 mn customers are in the Wrong Hands of Weak Management of Reliance ADAG Group because of extremely poor customer care

Read moreReliance Communications 100mn Customers – In Wrong Hands

India’s GSM operators (excluding RCOM and TTSL) reported another month of strong SIM card sales adding 11.1 mn SCIU versus 10.32 mn in the previous month. Increasing multi-SIM usage makes any inference on underlying industry trends based on this monthly data (mostly) meaningless.

Bharti Airtel – Bharti reported an increase in net adds in Nov 2009 to 2.8 mn, from 2.7 mn in Oct 2009. The company’s net adds market share, however, continues to dip – now down to 25.3% (among the GSM players excluding RCOM and TTSL) from 34% as late as May 2009. Bharti Airtel has bid for Warid Telecom in Bangladesh.

Vodafone – Net adds decline to 2.8 mn from 3 mn reported in the previous month.