Norwegian incumbent Telenor is planning several corrective actions for its Uninor business in India, it said at an annual capital markets day in Oslo.
These actions include delaying additional capex until revenues improve, focusing on street-level market…
Norwegian incumbent Telenor is planning several corrective actions for its Uninor business in India, it said at an annual capital markets day in Oslo.
These actions include delaying additional capex until revenues improve, focusing on street-level market activities and improving the distribution model. The company nonetheless left in place its financial targets, including EBITDA break-even in 2013.
A few weeks ago, Telenor denied that it was planning to exit Uninor, its telecoms JV with Indian real estate group Unitech.
In an email to TelecomFinance, a spokesman for Telenor wrote at the time, “Uninor’s target is still to secure an 8% market share by 2018, be EBITDA positive in three years and cash-flow positive in five years. This has not changed. Telenor Group is a long-term participant in the Indian market. We are committed to India and our investment in Uninor.” Uninor is owned by Telenor (67.25%) and Unitech (32.75%).
This followed reports suggesting that due to doubts over Uninor’s profitability horizon and the expectation of further losses, some investors were in favour of exiting India.
Uninor posted a Q2 2010 EBITDA loss of NOK 1.132bn (US$182m), which Telenor said was mainly a result of network operation as well as sales and marketing expenses. For the whole of 2010, the company expects an EBIDTA loss of between NOK 4.5bn (US$760m) and NOK 5bn (US$844m).
