Bharti Airtel hails $10.7-billion deal with Zain Africa
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The cat is out of the bag. The most talked about deal of the season has been consummated. And India is truly established as the first post-Independence multinational. The highly developed telecom sector of India has now come to the forefront of the world business model.
By signing the final $10.7-billion deal with Zain Africa for all its African assets, Bharti Airtel has finally got the big ticket global acquisition. According to Bharti Airtel CEO, Sunil Bharti Mittal, as soon as the regulatory approvals fall in place, $8.3 billion will get transferred and the remaining $700 million will be transferred after one year.
It has also been revealed by Sunil Mittal that Airtel will rebrand Zain in Africa within months of closing the deal. The company made it clear that there is no need of strategy for the turnaround for Zain. The company has been really doing well occupying the top slot in 10 countries, second in four countries and fourth in just one country i.e. Ghana. Besides, the company has $4 billion of top line and $1.2-billion EBIDTA.
Zain has also been making investments year on year and has invested $600-700 million and even $800 million in capex at times.
Manoj Kohli who has been heading the international operations outside South Asia will take the charge of the new operations in Africa as CEO. Operations of the firm will be led by the Africans and supported by key members of the Indian team who will move from India to Africa.
On the failure of the deal with the Africa’s top mobile operator MTN, Sunil Bharti opined that the deal with Zain is a bigger one as it provides Bharti Airtel to have its own brand, its own management, its own low-cost model and its outsourcing model. If the deal with MTN would have materialized, the company would have only got participation rights and co-management rights in the company.
SSTL targets profitability within three years (India)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Profitability is seeked to be achieved by Indian mobile network operator Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL) within three years. SSTL is a joint venture between Russian mobile giant Sistema and India’s Shyam Telecom.
According to Vsevolod Rosanov, president and CEO of SSTL, the company is hoping to become earnings before interest, depreciation, tax and amortization (EBIDTA) positive by 2012-end or early 2013.
n March 2008, a pan- India license was acquired by SSTL and the telco is expecting to launch its commercial services in all 22 of the country’s telecom circles by the end of this year. While no subscriber targets has yet been announced by SSTL, it has been noted that to reach profitability the company would need to have approximately 30 million customers.
Until end-December 2009, SSTL had signed up 3.09 million subscribers.
100 million sign-ups aimed by 2012: Aircel
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Aircel, an Indian mobile network operator has expressed its aim to increase its subscriber base to 100 million by 2012. According to Aircel COO Gurdeep Singh, per-second billing is unsustainable and constrains EBIDTA margins.
The company will see these tariffs for another year-and-a-half after which consolidation will set in. With tariffs hitting all time low, only value-added services could increase revenues.
Revenues from data services will be focused by Aircel with the cellco hoping to boost the contribution to total revenue from such services to 11% by 2012, up from the current 7% level.
KPN raises FY EBITDA outlook after strong Q3
Dutch operator KPN has raised its full-year EBITDA growth outlook after reporting a strong third quarter. The company now expects a mid single-digit rise in full-year EBITDA, versus a previous outlook for low single-digit growth and a reported figure of 8.7 percent in the first nine months of the year. For the third quarter, KPN posted revenues up 3.7 percent from a year ago to EUR 3.037 billion, while EBIDTA increased 4.4 percent to EUR 1.198 billion. Net profit rose to EUR 349 million from EUR 334 million a year earlier. KPN confirmed a forecast for low single-digit growth in sales this year, while increasing its outlook for free cash flow to more than EUR 2.4 billion from EUR 2.2 billion previously. So far this year cash flow has reached EUR 2.139 billion.Growth in the quarter came from the mobile division, helped by the takeover of Dutch operator Telfort last year and a strong improvement in profitability at E-Plus in Germany. Mobile revenues rose 16.6 percent from a year ago to EUR 1.689 billion, while EBITDA at the division increased to EUR 583 million from EUR 452 million a year ago. Fixed revenues fell 3.8 percent to EUR 1.630 billion, hurt by cuts in mobile termination rates and line losses. EBITDA at the fixed division dropped to EUR 623 million from EUR 702 million a year ago.
Source- http://www.telecompaper.com
