Amid all the speculations of country’s top telecom firms in talks with Videocon Telecommunication to acquire its 2G licenses, Videocon Telecom’s Director and Chief Executive Officer, Arvind Bali asserted that the focus of the company is to expand its operation especially in the 1800 mega hertz long term evolution (lTE) band or 4G.
When asked by The Pioneer about whether company was approached by Reliance Jio Infocomm or any other player, Bali said: “At this point of time, all I can say that we are not averse to partnering or exploring investment avenues.” He did restrain from giving out any names but emphasised that for now the company is all focused on 4G rollout in selected networks. But while speaking his mind, Bali did add, “We will be an acquirer than get acquired.”
Bali also stressed that there wasn’t a keen interest in letting go company’s 2G services and said, “2G will be there for a long time and customers will not instantaneously switch to 4G services from 2G. People will take some time before 4G customer base would pick up. We are focused to provide dual technology and continue to provide 2G services.”
While giving an insight to the expansion plan of the company, Bali said, “We have a lot in hand in the next financial year including rollout of services in Bihar, UP West and UP East circles. Also, we are planning to launch 4G lTE services in select cities and network expansion in our four existing circles.”
When asked as to how much the company plans to spend under its expansion strategy, Bali responded, “We are in process of finalizing our business plan. The total expenses towards these expansions are expected to be around Rs1,500 crore in FY15.”
Apart from investing towards rolling our 4G in the country, the company is also focusing to stretch its operations across the country.”We want to be a pan India player and for that we will expand both organically as well as inorganically,” Bali added. He further added that after first phase of expansion is complete, the company is looking to enter Maharashtra circle along with some circles in the south.
With an elaborate network expansion plan, the company needs updated equipment and technologies for smooth implementation. With this purpose in mind, Bali, recently was on a visit to China to hunt for technology partners. “Trip to China was all about searching for equipment and technology partners. A delegation would soon be going to Barcelona as well for future technology,” Bali added.
Presently Finland based, Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) is one of the major technology partners for Videocon Telecommunications and the company is in talks with NSN for upgrading its existing technologies. “We are in discussion with our existing partners including NSN since most of our available infrastructure is upgradable to cater to next generation services including 4G. We are also in talks with others for various networking and information technology. We have more or less shortlisted and finalized our partners.”
A strong advocate of consolidation in the country’s telecom sector, Bali added, “Telecom industry is now a 10- 12 player market which is leading to hyper competition. This kind of over competition has an adverse impact on business and leads to erosion. What I see is the industry reducing to 6- 7 players. Videocon Telecom is a long term player and is here to stay.”