MTNL to invest Rs.2000 crore towards GSM expansion
By Our Corporate Bureau | 21 Feb 2005
New Delhi: The state-owned MTNL has announced a further expansion in GSM mobile phones at an investment of Rs2,000 crore to be invested during the next financial year. The national carrier said that it was growing much faster, compared to its rivals in the private sector. It added 44,659 new customers in January this year in Delhi alone, which formed 53 per cent of the total added subscribers. Similarly in Mumbai it added 50,102 subscribers in January. An MTNL source said that if this trend continues, MTNL may require additional capacity much sooner than expected. Fresh capacity of four lakh connections each in Delhi and Mumbai should be completed within first half of 2005-06, officials said.
In January, against MTNL's 53 per cent share in the net addition, leading private GSM players like Bharti managed to take away only 15 per cent (12,992), Hutch only 10 per cent (8,275) and Idea added 18,599 new subscriber in Delhi, officials said. In Mumbai also, the private players were far behind.