Bharti Airtel has acquired an additional 2% stake in the four Indian BWA entities owned by US semiconductor company Qualcomm, raising its total interest to 51%.
As a result those units have become Bharti Airtel’s subsidiaries, India’s largest mobile…
Bharti Airtel has acquired an additional 2% stake in the four Indian BWA entities owned by US semiconductor company Qualcomm, raising its total interest to 51%.
As a result those units have become Bharti Airtel’s subsidiaries, India’s largest mobile operator told the Bombay Stock Exchange.
A year ago, Airtel agreed to buy a 49% stake in Qualcomm’s BWA venture for US$165m.
At the time, the operator stated that “the agreement contemplates that once commercial operations are launched (…) Bharti would assume complete ownership and financial responsibility for the BWA entities by the end of 2014.”
In June 2010, Qualcomm had applied for BWA licences following a successful bid for frequencies in the circles of Mumbai, Delhi, Kerala and Haryana for US$1bn.
But the Department of Telecommunications initially refused to allocate the frequencies, arguing that Qualcomm was late in filing the application and had originally applied for four different licences, which was not allowed.
The dispute only came to an end at the beginning of May 2012, with Qualcomm being awarded 4G spectrum in the four circles.
The sale of a stake to Bharti is in line with Qualcomm’s strategy announced in 2010, whereby the company would exit the venture after rolling out its network.
Bharti already has BWA licences in Kolkata, Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra.
