Thaindian News

Chennai, March 25 (IANS) Aiming at the third slot in the Indian mobile telephony services sector with a subscriber base of 100 million and investing Rs.14,000 crore, Videocon Telecommunications hopes to make profits in two years time.
“As we add subscribers and roll out value added services (VAS), the company will make profits. By 2013, the company revenue will be $3.4 billion (Rs.1,420 crore),” Videocon Group Chairman Venugopal N. Dhoot told reporters here Thursday.

According to Dhoot, the group is targeting a turnover of $10 billion (Rs.4,500 crore) by 2013 up from the current $4 billion (Rs.1,800 crore).

The company plans to roll out its services in 100 cities across India over the next 100 days.

“We will be connecting major 100 cities in the next 100 days. We will roll out our VAS one after another and we are confident of breaking even in two years,” Sunil Tandon, chief marketing officer, told IANS.

Videocon Telecommunications will be unveiling its services across Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra including Mumbai.

To start with the company has around 70,000 base stations comprising of owned and shared ones.

Launching the company’s global system for mobile (GSM) communication service here, Dhoot said the company apart from new customers will also target subscribers of other service providers once the number portability (a system of changing the service provider while retaining the old number) comes into operation.

He said in five years time India’s population will be around 120 crore and around 20 crore people will have multiple connections.

The mobile telephony subscriber base in India will grow to 80 crore by 2015, he said.

He said a banking consortium led by State Bank of India (SBI) has agreed to lend Rs.7,000 crore for the group’s telephony venture while the balance will be funded through equity and other sources.