Videocon to invest Rs 6K cr for mobile telecom foray

NEW DELHI: The Videocon group, which was recently awarded pan-India telecom licences, will invest Rs 6,000 crore for network roll-outs and to launch operations across the country. Group chairman Venugopal Dhoot told ET. ���We have set aside Rs 6,000 crore for our telecom foray. We hope to roll-out services over the next couple of months. We have set a target of 40 million customers within the next five years,��� Mr Dhoot said.

Videocon has been awarded telecom licences through its subsidiary Datacom. As first reported by ET, Datacom heads the queue for spectrum (radio frequencies) in 19 of the 21 telecom circles. In fact, in the two circles (Delhi and Mumbai), where it does not head the queue, the company is in the second position.

���We have appointed Ravi Sharma, who was earlier heading Alcatel-Lucent���s operations in India as the CEO of Datacom. The company is in the process of hiring 200 top executives to run the mobile operations,��� Mr Dhoot added. Mr Sharma, who was in charge of Alcatel-Lucent���s south Asia operations and was recently elevated as advisor to Frederic Rose, Alcatel-Lucent���s Europe, Africa and Asia (EAA) business president, had resigned from the company last week.

Mr Dhoot dismissed market speculation that Datacom was looking at a merger with telecom service provider HFCL. ���This rumour has been around for sometime ��� I want to clarify that this is utterly baseless,��� he said.

When asked if Datacom would enter into strategic or financial partnerships with international telecom majors, Mr Dhoot said, ���We have got offers from several potential partners. We are evaluating them ��� there will definitely be one major strategic partner. Over the next three weeks, we shall finalise this strategic player,��� he added.