India's mobile market is booming. It is now the world's fastest-growing and most promising mobile phone markets with more than 140 million users and adding about six million subscribers every month. The market is growing by around a whopping 55% a year. The figure is expected to be somewhere around 200 million subscribers by the end of the current year. The nation will soon outnumber the mobile user population of Italy, France or Britain. Besides, the growing middle-class figure will be an added bonus against robust economic growth. According to estimates, by 2010 around 500 million Indians are likely to possess mobile phones. The industry's growth story is very encouraging particularly telecom giants like AT&T, BT Group PLC and Vodafone Group PLC who had earlier exited, returned to its shores. Now the sale of India's fourth-largest mobile player has turned into a high stake battle for Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile phone group by terms of revenue, which aims to grab a large foothold in the Indian mobile market. With the mobile business in Europe waning, the present acquisition makes business sense for Vodafone. Vodafone has already acquired a 10% stake with another leading mobile operator, Bharti Airtel. Experts say, "the deal is just the latest in a string that shows the power of Indian companies and the strength of the Indian market." Analysts in the UK are seeing the deal as a good fit for Vodafone by adding that it is a return to its "swashbuckling" days of old and an emphatic execution of its emerging market strategy to "become a global player that offers mobile phone services alone".
|
