Doha-based Qatar Foundation Endowment has bought five per cent stake for $1.18 billion in Bharti Airtel.
In a major reform push, government on Thursday approved 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in the telecom sector, meeting a key demand of the fund-starved industry.
The Supreme Court recently quashed a rule that mandated telecom operators to compensate consumers.
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chairman Mukesh D Ambani on Wednesday said the latest reforms and relief measures will enable the telecom sector to achieve goals set under the Digital India mission. The Cabinet has announced several reforms for the telecom sector, including redefining adjusted gross revenue (AGR) that will now include revenues earned only from telecom services. The government calculates various levies on AGR. "The telecom sector is one of the prime movers of the economy and the key enabler for making India a Digital Society, I welcome the Government of India's announcement of reforms and relief measures that will enable the industry to achieve the goals of Digital India. I thank Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) for this bold initiative," Ambani said.
Dixon Technologies right now is a beehive of activity. It is building a new facility in Noida to make 1.3 million laptops for Taiwanese PC maker Acer. The facility must be up and running in four months. The pace of activity will only increase. Last week Dixon won a similar contract from Lenovo, the Chinese personal computer maker and the third largest information technology (IT) hardware brand in India, to assemble laptops and notebooks. Though the clientele in these two cases is Taiwanese and Chinese, Dixon is a company reaching for the stars with its feet planted firmly in the Indian government's policy.
'Similar to the case of the digital payment system where the government created a public platform and others joined in, we are exploring a similar structure to create a PPP platform where the compute required for AI could be accessed by the small player.'
The Israel-Hamas conflict is expected to impact the trade of gems and jewellery between India and Israel, exporters said on Monday. Colin Shah, MD, Kama Jewelry, said the war can "adversely" impact Indian exports to Israel. Total gems and jewellery trade between India and Israel stood at $2.04 billion in 2022-23 as against $2.8 billion in 2021-22.
The UAE-based Etisalat issued proceedings on Monday towards winding up its Indian joint venture Etisalat DB Telecom, earlier called Swan Telecom. The company was doing it "so that there can be a proper and orderly end to the business of Etisalat DB Telecom that is supervised by the Indian Courts", it said in a statement.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Thursday posted a net profit of Rs 1,612 crore for the first quarter ended June 2023, which is nearly flat over earnings in the same period of the previous year. The revenue for the just-ended quarter was 14 per cent higher at Rs 37,440 crore compared to the year-ago period "backed by strong and consistent performance delivery across the portfolio", the company said.
'I was in the US, where I met top executives of HP and Dell, and they are very keen to come to India.' 'Acer and ASUS have also evinced interest.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the US is expected to see discussion on India's possible entry into a US-led global alliance on critical minerals, officials told Business Standard. In June last year, the US, the European Union, and other G7 partners launched the Minerals Security Partnership to ensure that China did not further strengthen its grip on supplies of critical minerals the world over. Various ministries, including the Ministry of Finance, have communicated to the Ministry of External Affairs to explore the possibility of India joining the partnership, officials said.
Communications network major Nortel Networks is expected to clinch soon the metro area network deployment deals from two telecom operators in the country.
TRAI has registered 28.16 crore telecom subscribers, with an addition of 87.4 lakh in Jan itself.
The discussions are 'indicative and non-binding' in nature.
The Unified Licence for all 22 Service Areas across India will make the company the first telecom operator in the country to get pan India Unified Licence, the company said in a statement.
Breaking its silence on reports that Chinese telecom equipment makers are being banned in India on security reasons, Beijing on Monday urged New Delhi to remove restrictions and said such curbs amount to discrimination.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has asked the Department of Telecommunications to reconsider its decision to issue Mumbai-based Loop Telecom an all-India mobile services licence, suggesting the company had links with Essar Group that violate restrictions on telecom cross-holdings by groups.
Adani group opened a $1.2 billion copper plant, bought a port in Odisha, raised stakes in a cement company and stitched an alliance with rival Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, all in a matter of one week in signs that the apples-to-airport conglomerate has shrugged off the Hindenburg effect and is back to rapid expansion spree. In the last one week, Adani group has through regulatory filings and press statements announced expansions and investments in its mainstay ports business, diversification into metal refining, fund infusion into a two-year-old cement foray and continuing progress in the commissioning of its mega solar project.
Analysts have given a thumbs up to the Reliance Industries (RIL) and Walt Disney Co. (Disney) proposed a joint venture (JV). The stock of the Mukesh Ambani-controlled company gained nearly 1.5 per cent on Thursday to Rs 2,952 levels as compared to the S&P BSE Sensex that traded marginally weak, down 0.2 per cent to 72,172 levels in intra-day trades.
Mukesh Ambani, will become the IOA's principal partner and help the country's sports federations
Foreign direct investment (FDI) equity inflows in India declined 24 per cent to $20.48 billion in April-September 2023, dragged by lower inflows in computer hardware and software, telecom, auto and pharma, according to government data. FDI inflows stood at $26.91 billion during the first six months of the last fiscal. Inflows during January-March 2023 also contracted 40.55 per cent to $9.28 billion.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's children -- Isha, Akash and Anant -- on Monday were appointed on the board of his energy-to-technology conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd, in what is seen as a clear path of succession planning at India's most valuable company.
Google on Tuesday began reinstating about 250 Indian apps it had delisted from its Play Store over a billing dispute as it caved in to government criticism, but the squabble may not yet be over.
Internet major Google has appointed former joint secretary at Niti Aayog Archana Gulati as head of public policy in India. A Google spokesperson confirmed the appointment. Messages sent to Gulati elicited no immediate reply. Gulati was looking after digital communications policy matters at the government think tank and took voluntary retirement in April last year.
Ambani said, it will be ready for trials as soon as 5G spectrum is available and can be ready for field deployment next year.
The DoT estimates that it will receive Rs 29,524 cr in revenue from the telecom industry in FY18, which is 38% less than the Budget revenue target of Rs 47,300 cr for FY18
In a development that may help jailed former Telecom Minister's A Raja's defence in court, the telecom regulator has informed the CBI that Trai did not recommend the auction of 2G spectrum in 2007, implying that there was no loss to the exchequer in the award of licences.
The Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India, the CDMA operators' body, said mobile services could become dearer by 28 paisa per minute if the recommendations by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India are accepted in their current form.
Indian telecom operators have surpassed the three- year 5G network rollout target given to them within six months and now the government is making efforts to enhance adoption of 5G applications across various key segments, a senior government official said in Barcelona. Department of Telecom Additional Secretary VL Kantha Rao told PTI at "India Evening" event on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress 2023 that the government has hosted over 50 companies at the India pavilion and the delegation is here to showcase indigenously-developed 4G and 5G technology stack. "When the spectrum was allocated to telecom service providers for 5G rollout, we gave a minimum rollout obligation saying that within one year they have to cover a few cities within three years, a few towns and so on and so forth.
Isha's stab at the bottom of the laptop pyramid shows she is a true Ambani.
Having identified India as an emerging market, Israel expects its telecom exports to the country to grow 30 per cent in 2003, from $100 million recorded in the previous year.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Thursday launched a channel selector application which will facilitate consumers to view their TV subscription and choose the channels of their interest while removing the unwanted ones.
Buyers from 19 countries participated and showed interest in sourcing from India.
The government said on Monday that it will soon come out with a uniform and single licence fee for telecom service provider, which is currently between 6 and 10 per cent of the revenue of these companies.
India's teledensity touched 8.20 per cent by the end of October with total number of phone connections touching 8.86 crore (88.6 million), department of telecom said.
Since August 2013, FIPB has approved two FDI proposals in the telecom sector.
The 78-year-old Naveen is on the cusp of creating history. He must win the forthcoming Assembly polls to become India's longest-serving chief minister, a record held by Sikkim's Pawan Kumar Chamling.
Telecom minister A Raja on Tuesday said he followed the same procedures as his predecessors in awarding licences and allotting spectrum and decisions were taken in conformity with the opinion of the top law officer.
Globally, the focus has moved back to India, especially in terms of telecom assets. Vodafone Idea, with some 300 million customers, continues to be attractive with shares available at a low price.