Uninor to invest ₹600 crore this year

Uninor, a leading telecom operator will invest Rs 600 crore in capex in India during 2014, according to Chief Executive Officer Morten Karlsen Sorby.

The company wants to focus more on Internet services, which is seeing big growth in India. The Narendra Modi Government’ push towards a Digital India provides exciting opportunities, he told newspersons here today.

Retail outlets expansion With a subscriber base of 42 million, Uninor is investing in infrastructure that includes 5,000 base stations, more point of sale, retail outlets and towers during the year. As part of the Customer First Day (September 25), 100 new retail outlets have been launched and 500 Wi-Fi enabled across the country.

The company, part of the Norwegian Telecom major Telenor, also started a dial 121 service to enable the customer do a self-help exercise to access their account, get customised tariff plans, activate and de-activate add-on services etc., he added.

Agreeing that the parent company Telenor had got approval from FIPB to increase ownership from 74 per cent equity to 100 per cent, Sorby said he could not give a time frame for the transition. Similarly, he said the revenue growth in India was 40 per cent in the first half of this calendar year, but did not reveal absolute numbers.

Healthy progress Stating that the progress was healthy, the CEO said in the six operating circles it had climbed to fourth position.

In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, five new retail outlets were launched and 30 stores Wi-Fi enabled. Overall, with a network of more than 1500 stores and 365,000 points of sale, Uninor has the second largest distribution network in its operating circles, said Satish Kumar Kannan, Circle Business Head for Andhra Pradesh.