Vodafone brand becomes India-wide
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The mobile telephone company,  Vodafone, begins to use its brand name across India.
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Vodafone Group PLC launched high-speed Internet services for mobile phones across much of Europe on Wednesday, ending a wait of several years since the world's biggest cell phone company spent billions for new wireless licenses at the height of the technology bubble.
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(InfoWorld) - British mobile services operator Vodafone Group will acquire a majority stake in Hutchison Essar, winning aÂ heated bid for controlÂ of the Indian mobile services operator. Vodafone announced late Sunday that it has agreed to acquire companies that control a 67 percent stake in Hutchison Essar from Hutchison Telecommunications International, a subsidiary of Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa. Hutchison Telecommunications holds a majority stake in Hutchison Essar both directly and through a joint venture company in which Indian partners hold shares. Vodafone will pay $11.1 billion in cash for the acquisition, along with assuming $2 billion in debt, through its subsidiary Vodafone International Holdings. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of this year, and is conditional to Indian regulatory approval, it said. Hutchison's decision came over the weekend, after it evaluated bids from four key contenders including Indian mobile services provider Reliance Communications, the Hinduja Group of the U.K., and Indiaâs Essar Group, which holds 33 percent in Hutchison Essar, according to informed sources. Vodafone will offer to acquire the Essar Groupâs stake at the same price per share it is offering Hutchison, the company said. Indian regulations however do not allow foreign operators to hold more than 74 percent of the equity in an Indian telecommunications service provider. If the Essar Group sells its stake, Hutchisonâs local partners, which together have a 15 percent interest in Hutchison Essar, will increase their interest to 26 percent, Vodafone said. The Essar Group said in its statement late Sunday that it was evaluating an offer from Vodafone to be a partner. The Essar Group has the option to continue as an equity holder in Hutchison Essar or sell its stake along with Hutchison Telecommunications. Vodafone has been seeking Hutchisonâs stake since December last year, and in January the companyâs CEO,Â Arun Sarin visited India to press its caseÂ with the Indian government and business partners here. India is adding over 6 million new mobile subscribers every month. Hutchison Essar had 23.3 million customers as of December 31, 2006, which gave it a 16.4 percent market share. Vodafone also offered Sunday to sell its stake of 5.6 percent in Bharti Airtel, also a large Indian mobile services operator, to another company of the Bharti Group for $1.6 billion, double the price for which itÂ acquired the stake in 2005. It also announced a memorandum of understanding with Bharti Airtel for infrastructure sharing with Hutchison Essar.
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Facebook has officially launched its platform for cellular operators, and the U.K.'s Vodafone is the first to adopt it.
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The company joins Vodafone and 3 as providers of high-speed services such as video calling, entertainment downloads and internet access.
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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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LONDON -- Britain's Vodafone Group PLC has agreed to buy a 67 percent controlling interest in Hutchison Essar Ltd., one of India's leading cellphone companies, for $11.1 billion, Vodafone said yesterday.
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(InfoWorld) - In the third content deal in as many days, Vodafone Group announced a service that will allow its mobile customers to view and upload videos to YouTube. The announcement follows others this week from Vodafone withÂ MySpace.comÂ and eBay. The deals point to a growing interest from online content providers to offer their services to mobile customers as well as continued efforts by operators to drive usage of their wireless data networks. The mobile YouTube service will launch initially in the U.K. where customers will be able to view select videos, forward links of videos and upload and search for videos. Vodafone plans to launch the service in other European markets as well. YouTube has a similar offering in the U.S. where customers of Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA, and Verizon Wireless can all upload videos from their phones. On Thursday, Vodafone said it will be the first to launch a new mobile service from eBay in Europe outside of the U.K. Vodafone Italy customers will be the first to be able to download a free application in order to search for and buy items on eBay. The application will come loaded on phones in the future and Vodafone expects to launch the service across its European markets later this year. EBay has experimented with different mobile offerings. In Germany, it launched a customized version of the Opera Mini browser that lets users buy, sell and track bids. EBay also allows any U.K. mobile user to bid for and buy items on their phones. Also this week, Vodafone announced that its customers, starting in the U.K., will be able to download an application to their phones that will allow them to edit their MySpace profiles, upload photos and blog entries and send and receive MySpace messages. It's the first mobile offering for MySpace in Europe, Vodafone said. All three services will be available within Vodafone Live, the operator's mobile portal.
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Shares in Vodafone Group PLC rose Monday as the market reacted positively to the weekend move by the world's largest mobile telephone company to gain control of Hutchison Essar India Ltd.
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Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone manufacturer, is to start making handsets in India.
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(InfoWorld) - Verizon Business, a unit of U.S. communications service provider Verizon Communications, has applied for a license to provide international long-distance services in India. The move reflects Verizon's recognition of the growth potential of Asian markets, Verizon Business said Wednesday. Leading multinational telecommunications services companies have applied for licenses to operate national and long-distance telecommunications services in India, to take advantage of a new policy that liberalized direct foreign investment in telecommunications services companies. Before the new policy, some multinational telecommunications services companies including Verizon were offering services in India through cooperation agreements with local licensed service providers. New government rules, announced in 2005, allow companies with foreign ownership of up to 74 percent to offer telecommunications services in the country. Before this rule, foreign investment was limited to 49 percent, which deterred foreign carriers from setting up operations in India. AT&T's majority-owned Indian joint venture, AT&T Global Network Services India was awarded licenses last year by the Indian government to operate national and international long distance telecommunications services from the country. AT&T holds 74 percent of the equity in the joint venture. BT Telecom India, an Indian joint venture of BT Group, applied to the Indian government in November for licenses to provide national and international long-distance services. The government awarded it letters of intent in December, as a first step to the award of licenses. As part of its expansion in India, BT announced Tuesday that it has signed an agreement for the acquisition of i2i Enterprise, a Mumbai-based enterprise services company specializing in IP (Internet Protocol) communications services for Indian and multinational companies. The acquisition would be through its Indian joint venture, BT said. I2i already has licenses to provide international and national long-distance services, Internet services, and Internet telephony services. Verizon is planning to offer its telecommunications services to multinational companies that are expanding in India, as well as Indian companies expanding abroad. It has set up a joint venture, Verizon Communications India, with India's Leo Communications, a part of the Videocon Group of Mumbai. Verizon will hold a 74 percent stake in the joint venture, while Leo will hold the balance 26 percent. Verizon Business is one of three operating units of Verizon Communications, and delivers IP, data, voice and wireless services to large business and government. In India, Verizon Business plans to offer a full range of services to multinational customers, including MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching), international private leased circuits and IP VPNs (virtual private networks).
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InfoWorld - Mobile developers around the world are in an uproar over a change Vodafone has made in the U.K. that dramatically decreases the quality of their products and that they fear could prevent new and innovative mobile services from reaching the market.
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Vodafone is putting its substantial weight behind a 3G push by offering ten handsets in the run up to Christmas. From November the firm will sell handsets from manufacturers including Samsung, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, NEC and Nokia.
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India, already the world&#039;s fastest  growing wireless services market, is set to become a handset  manufacturing and export hub as giants such as Nokia and LG  churn out millions of phones to tap voracious demand.
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British mobile-phone giant Vodafone's purchase of a 11.1-billion-dollar stake in India's Hutchison Essar has been welcomed by local contenders, smoothing its entry into the world's fastest-growing wireless market.
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The company signs on an Indian cellular provider, looking to capitalize on the country's fast-growing wireless market.
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Ziff Davis - Vodafone signs a global purchasing agreement with Sun that gives Vodafone consistent terms for Sun's hardware, software and services product line.