News: Virgin Mobile mulls tie-up with Tatas

(PTI 17/01/2007) London - British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile plans to enter India's fast growing telecom market through a tie-up with the Tata Group company Tata Teleservices, media reports said here.

Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata is understood to be in talks with Virgin for granting the British firm an exclusive franchisee of Tata Teleservices, the British newspaper The Times reported on Wednesday.

The venture could begin operations as early as April and is expected to involve creating a business owned partly by Tata Teleservices, the report said.

Spokespersons for Virgin Mobile and Tata Teleservices were not available for comment.

Reports about talks between Virgin and Tatas mark the latest development in a race by British mobile operators to cement their presence in India.

UK giant Vodafone is also eyeing a controlling stake in India's fourth-largest mobile operator Hutch-Essar and is expected to announce a formal bid early next month.

Tata Teleservices, which offers CDMA services under the Tata Indicom brand, has 8.6 million subscribers with a seven per cent market share.

Virgin Mobile, a virtual operator which does not have its own network, already operates in the US through a joint venture with Sprint. It is also present in Australia and France through a tie-up with Carphone Warehouse, the high street chain founded by Charles Dunstone.

India has a population of 1.1 billion but a mobile phone penetration rate of over 17 per cent or 189.93 million users. The country is one of the world's largest untapped mobile phone markets, and usage could triple in the next four years, The Times quoted analysts.