Indian Shares

Vodaphone has completed the purchase of 67% of shares in Hutchison Essar, beating off a bid from Reliance Communications. The capture marks a shift in strategy as Vodaphone moves away from the Swiss and Belgian mobile phone markets to emerging economies. The Indian mobile phone market is witnessing fantastic growth at present.

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In a detailed article on Multinationals investing in India and the growing variety of service which can be performed from India the BBC highlight some interesting facts.

• More than 500 major international companies have IT operations in Bangalore alone
• India, exports $25bn per year worth of BPO services, a figure that is expected to rise to $60bn by 2010
• Foreign IT investments in India over $1bn during 2006 were made by IBM, Intel, SAP, Accenture, Cisco Systems, AMD, Microsoft and Dell

Read the full BBC article here and here.

Vodafone is reported to be facing competition in its bid for he Hutchison Whampoa from Indian conglomerate Essar, which has 33% of Hutchison Whampoa Mobile Phone business. Unlike Vodophone Essar is not affected by the 74% limit on foreign ownership of Indian mobile phone providers.

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Vodafone has said it is considering a bid for a majority stake in Hutchison Whampoa's Indian mobile phone business.  Vodafone which already owns 10% of Bharti Airtel, the market leader in India and sees the mobile market in India as having great potential, more so than in Europe. However foreign firms are limited to owning 74% of Indian mobile phone providers.

With over 70% of India’s population not having access to fixed line telephone services according to Maravedis there are significant possibilities for WiMax in India.

The WiMax forum defines WiMax as a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL. WiMAX with a range of up to 30 miles. The technology is ideal for India and explains why big telecoms companies like Nortel, Alcatel, BT and AT&T are getting involved.

Source: Maravedis predicts WiMax subscribers to reach 13 million in India by 2012

Source: WiMAX in India: Opening New Frontiers Through Broadband Connectivity