The merged entity would be known as 'Vodafone Idea Ltd'.
Idea Cellular Ltd, a three-way joint venture company between Tata, Birla and AT&T, has launched two new tariff schemes, Chitchat Flexi and Buzz99, for its new and existing customers.
Aditya Birla group's Idea Cellular has signed a deal to acquire 40.8 per cent stake in Spice Communications for Rs 2,716 crore (Rs 27.16 billion).
The company and a unit had received tax demands from authorities over a restructuring exercise approved by courts more than three years ago.
Aditya Birla Group on Wednesday raised its stake in Idea Cellular to 50.15 per cent after it bought Cingular Wireless's stake for $150 million (about Rs 650 crore).
A new board has been constituted for the merged entity 'Vodafone Idea Ltd' with 12 directors (including six independent directors) and Kumar Mangalam Birla as its Chairman. The board has appointed Balesh Sharma as the CEO, the companies said in a joint statement. The combination will have an all-India revenue market share of 32.2 per cent and take the numero uno slot in nine telecom circles, it said adding that both Vodafone and Idea brands will continue.
Birla group firm Idea Cellular Ltd and Modis-owned Spice Telecom on Friday dared the government to allocate spectrum to those mobile operators who submitted applications after them.
Idea Cellular Ltd has achieved financial closure of over Rs 2,225 crore for its telecom venture with a project cost of around Rs 5,000 crore from IDBI Ltd and Rabo India Finance Pvt Ltd.
Aditya Birla group on Tuesday announced it had concluded acquisition of Tata group's 49 per cent stake in Idea Cellular Ltd for Rs 4,406 crore
Justice Rajiv Shakdher, referring to a Supreme Court order on a plea of Bharti Cellular Ltd in a similar case, asked the Department of Telecommunications not to take any coercive steps in pursuance of its notices issued to the telecom companies asking them to stop providing 3G services to mobile users in the circles for which they lacked licences.
Justice Rajiv Shakdhar asked the telecom company and five others including Birla to file their responses within four weeks and posted the matter for further hearing on August 5.
A consortium led by Singapore Technologies Telemedia Pte and Telekom Malaysia Bhd has bid for the one-third stake of AT&T Wireless Services Inc in Indian telecom major Idea Cellular Ltd.
The Cellular Operators Association of India, industry body representing GSM operators, had argued that TTSL's spectrum was allotted through the same press release issued on January 10, 2008, which led to the cancellation of 122 licences.
Aditya Birla Telecom Ltd (ABTL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Idea Cellular, will offload 20 per cent to Providence Equity Partners, a US buyout firm, for Rs 2,560 crore. This takes Providence's total investment in Idea Cellular to $1.04 billion, which is the largest private equity investment in an Indian telecom service provider. The deal values ABTL at Rs 12,800 crore.
Telecoms investor Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd and retailer Future Group were among the first big names to apply for licenses to run so-called payments banks
A Delhi consumer forum has asked telecom operator Idea Cellular Ltd to pay Rs 10,000 to a person as compensation for giving a bill inflated by Rs 3.50.
The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has rejected a proposal by Mauritius-based Axiata Investments 2 India Ltd, part of Asian telecom giant Axiata Group, to increase its stake in Idea Cellular by acquiring shares from the stock exchange.
A total of 41 companies had applied for the permit
Amid an existential crisis facing the firm over Rs 50,000 crore unpaid dues towards the government, billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla on Wednesday stepped down as the chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd. Birla -- who had in June offered to give away his holding in the joint venture with Britain's Vodafone to the government -- will cease to be a director and non-executive chairman of the company at the end of business hours on Wednesday, VIL said in a filing to the stock exchanges. It did not give any reason for Birla's decision. He will be replaced by Himanshu Kapania (who was earlier managing director and CEO of Birla's Idea Cellular) as the new chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd.
Spectrum auction ends, brings Rs 1.09 tln to govt kitty.
Market concentration in the country's telecom sector continues to scale new heights despite government bailouts of public-sector Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), and private-sector Vodafone Idea. The combined revenue (or net sales) share of the country's top two telecom operators - Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio - in the sector's total reached an all-time high of nearly 72 per cent in FY23 from 70.4 per cent in FY22 and around 60 per cent in FY20. The net sales of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel India were Rs 1.67 trillion in FY23, up 18.6 per cent from the Rs 1.4 trillion a year earlier.
With their net debt estimated at Rs 1.15 trillion, the merged entity will not be in much of a position to dole out freebies, says Romita Majumdar.
New Delhi is also set to top its target of raising at least $13 billion.
With the new entity coming in force, Bharti Airtel will lose the tag of India's biggest telecom service provider to the new entity.
Telecom regulator Trai has initiated action against cellular operators including Bharti, Idea and Hutchison for defying its order on selective blocking of calls originating and terminating in some basic service operators' networks.
"If we are not getting anything then I think it is end of story for Vodafone Idea," Kumar Mangalam Birla said at the HT Leadership Summit when asked about the future of Vodafone Idea in absence of a government relief on payment of Rs 53,038 crore dues.
VIL pegs dues at Rs 21,533 cr, less than half of DoT estimate. During a meeting with Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad made it clear that the government is against a monopoly in the telecom sector, and wants Vodafone Idea to survive and remain invested in India.
The launch of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd last September, particularly the tariff war it has unleashed on its competitors, has deepened the crisis facing India's telecom sector. One offshoot of this is the major drop in earnings reported by industry leaders Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular with each passing quarter. Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com tells the story in numbers.
MobileFirst, an alliance formed by the second rung cellular operators in India, is mulling a slash in mobile-to-mobile STD airtime rates, in line with an announcement made by Idea Cellular on Saturday.
The Department of Telecom has worked out a one-time spectrum charge of over Rs 2,060 crore to be levied from operators for the period they remained in business after their licences were cancelled in February last year, sources said.
Operators Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar, Aircel, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd and Idea Cellular might have to fork out over Rs 11,200 crore for having spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz, if the government accepts the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommendations.
The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission has issued notices to mobile operators Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Hutchison on a complaint over downloading of ring tones.
The empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on telecom headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday decided to impose a one-time fee on incumbent operators prospectively for spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz in GSM and 2.5 MHz in CDMA.
Making the things worse, those hitting their record low share prices included big names like Reliance Power, Cipla, Ranbaxy, Ambuja Cement, Hindalco, Indian Hotels, Jaiprakash Associates, Jet Airways, Suzlon Energy and Idea Cellular. Realty majors DLF Ltd, Unitech, Parsvnath, Sobha Developers, Omaxe and Puravankara also plunged to their all-time lows.
Launching a counter offensive in the ongoing controversy over stake holding in Idea Cellular, Tatas on Tuesday dubbed the position of joint venture partner AV Birla Group as "misleading" and asserted that they were under no legal obligation to exit f
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