Vodafone buys Indian mobile firm
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Vodafone buys a controlling stake in Indian mobile phone firm Hutchison Essar for $11bn (Â£5.6bn).
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India's Essar Group will remain as a key shareholder in Indian mobile services provider Hutchison Essar, but will likely negotiate stronger minority shareholder rights with Vodafone Group, which Sunday announced it wasÂ acquiring a controlling 67 percent stakeÂ in the company.
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British mobile phone giant Vodafone said it has agreed to buy an 11-billion-dollar controlling interest in India's Hutchison Essar, a spokesman for the company said.
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Vodafone Group Plc  has  won the battle for a controlling stake in Hutchison Essar,  India's No. 4 mobile operator, with a bid that values it at  around $19 billion including debt, a source and India's Essar  group said on Sunday.
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InfoWorld - An Indian mobile phone operator is the first to deploy mobile phones based on a single-chip CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) platform from Qualcomm Inc. The operator, Tata Teleservices Ltd., is offering Motorola Inc.&#39;s Motofone F3c for 1,699 Indian rupees (US$38).
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(InfoWorld) - Vodafone has begun offering new fees and features to stir demand for mobile Internet services as competition hits the company's profits from voice services. Two of the group's largest subsidiaries, Germany's Vodafone D2 GmbH and Vodafone Ltd. in the U.K., announced new mobile data offerings on Wednesday with subsidiaries in several other markets planning customized packages of their own, according to Vodafone Group spokesman Mark Street. "Pricing for these new mobile Internet services will be on a market by market basis, and it will be up to each market to decide on features," Street said. "But what I can say is that as a group, we're looking at prices that are predictable and transparent and services that offer value for their money." The move comes as Vodafone, which has been facing tough competition from low-cost mobile phone operators, seeks new revenue streams to offset falling prices from its traditional cash-cow voice service. It has also been prompted by mobile Internet services, such as T-Mobile International AG's Web n' Walk, designed for quick, easy, and competitively priced mobile phone surfing. As of July 15, Vodafone customers in Germany can subscribe to the new mobile Internet service, called "Handy 2.0," available for a flat monthly fee of â¬9.95 ($13.44) . The service uses the open-source Opera mobile phone browser, which formats content for easy viewing on small displays, according to Vodafone D2 spokeswoman Bettina Donges. "Handy 2.0 will be like a PC experience," Donges said. "You'll be able to surf all around the Net with your mobile phone, the pages will be compiled fast, and they'll be easy to read." The new flat-rate Internet offering, however, doesn't apply to VoIPÂ applications, according to Donges. Vodafone will not support mobile VoIP service until it can guarantee quality service, Street said. In addition, Vodafone has struck Internet partnerships with eBay, Google, YouTube, and MySpace.com to provide services specially tailored for mobile phones. Customers access the Internet service through the Vodafone Live mobile portal. The portal service is included in the various bundled minute packages available from the German operator. Initially, several handsets, including the Nokia N73 and N95, the Motorola V3 and V980, and the Samsung Zv60 and D900i, will support the Handy 2.0 service, but other phones will be added over time. In the U.K., Vodafone is launching a similar service that takes Web pages designed for PCs and makes them easy to read on handsets. The Vodafone Mobile Internet offerings also includes partnerships with eBay, Google, YouTube, and MySpace as well as Yahoo. Analysts see a couple of advantages to the partnerships. By collaborating with these brands, Vodafone not only gives customers a better experience of using their Internet services on their phones but will also benefit from advertising revenue opportunities, according to John Delaney, principal analyst at Ovum Ltd. One slight difference between the German and U.K. offering is the price: U.K. customers who sign up for a data pack pay Â£7.50 ($14.90 ) per month for 120MB of data, which is equivalent to four hours of viewing YouTube or up to 160 mobile Internet pages every day for a month. Other customers are charged per kilobyte, up to a Â£1 per day for 500KB, with no additional charge unless the day's usage exceeds 15MB.
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Qualcomm, the San Diego cell phone technology developer, said yesterday it has acquired a British software company for $36 million in cash.
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America&#39;s third-largest mobile operator, Sprint, yesterday agreed to buy the fifth-largest, Nextel, in a well-flagged cash and shares deal worth $36.3billion (Â£19billion).
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InfoWorld - India&#39;s Essar Group will remain as a key shareholder in Indian mobile services provider Hutchison Essar, but will likely negotiate stronger minority shareholder rights with Vodafone Group, which Sunday announced it was&#160;acquiring a controlling 67 percent stake&#160;in the company.
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When is a mobile company not a mobile company? Vodafone has acquired Aspective and Isis Telecommunications Management; two UK-based consultancies that specialise in the mobilisation of customer relationship management and sales force applications, as well as providing telecommunications services to small and medium businesses.â¦
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Telekom Austria yesterday said it had agreed to buy MobilTel, Bulgaria&#39;s leading mobile telephone operator, in a step widely seen as preparing the way for a big share placement in the Austrian group.
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Shares in Vodafone Group Plc, the world&#39;s largest mobile-phone operator, dropped after The Wall Street Journal said the company is considering bidding with US partner Verizon Communications Inc.
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Telecom giant Vodafone has said it will invest more than two billion dollars in a drive to make its new Indian purchase, Hutchison Essar, the country's biggest mobile phone company.
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Rival Indian telecoms firms greet Vodafone's purchase of Hutchison Essar as good news for the country.
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The mobile telephone company,  Vodafone, begins to use its brand name across India.
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Swisscom  has agreed to repurchase a 25 percent stake in Swisscom Mobile from British mobile phone company Vodafone  for 4.25 billion Swiss francs ($3.48 billion), in a long-awaited deal.
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(InfoWorld) - India's Essar Group will remain as a key shareholder in Indian mobile services provider Hutchison Essar, but will likely negotiate stronger minority shareholder rights with Vodafone Group, which Sunday announced it wasÂ acquiring a controlling 67 percent stakeÂ in the company. Essar Group does not intend to exit Hutchison Essar, and will run the company together with Vodafone, Essar Group Vice Chairman Ravi Ruia told reporters late Thursday after Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin met him in Mumbai. The terms for cooperation between Essar and Vodafone were laid out later in a statement from the Essar Group. "We will ensure that all of our shareholder rights, including under our shareholders' agreement with Hutchison, are adhered to," Essar Group said late Thursday. This gives the Essar Group theÂ right of first refusal to the proposed saleÂ of its equity by Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. (HTIL), according to informed sources. This right does not apply to the sale to Vodafone, Sarin told reporters this week. But the Essar Group could tie down Vodafone in protracted litigation. It is more likely to use this clause in the shareholder agreement with HTIL to negotiate a more favorable shareholder agreement with Vodafone, the sources said. The Essar Group holds 33 percent in Hutchison Essar. Vodafone has said it would prefer Essar stayed as a partner, but if it chose to exit it would offer to buy its stake for the same price per share it is offering HTIL. Essar hasn't entirely ruled out divesting from Hutchison Essar. Vodafone has approached Essar to discuss a possible partnership as regards Hutchison Essar, the Essar Group said in its statement. It will decide its future course of action in due course and in the best interests of the Essar group, it added.