Uninor breaks even in five of its six telecom circles

GSM operator Uninor, the Indian unit of Norway's Telenor, has broken even on financial front in two more circles - Uttar Pradesh (West) and Bihar (Jharkhand) - taking the total to five. The company, which has a presence across six circles, expects to break-even across all circles in the calendar year 2013.

The company had earlier achieved break-even across the three telecom zones of Uttar Pradesh (East) Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Maharashtra & Goa is the only other circle to break-even and the company expects to achieve it in this calendar year itself, said Yogesh Malik, CEO of Uninor.

''Uninor enjoys the highest revenue market share among all its circles in UP (West). Our plan now is to expand farther into smaller towns and villages of less than 5,000 population with our network and retail presence,'' said K.C. Narendran, Circle Business Head for UP West.

The operator has more 2,890 sites and 56,285 points of sale in the circle.

In Bihar, the company broke-even with the lowest average revenues per user (ARPU), a metric to gauge the financial strength of an operator. It has 4.3 million subscribers with a network of 2,442 sites and 50,000 points of sales in Bihar.

The break-even resulted from its lower costs per minute (up to 40 per cent lower) and sabse sasta tariffs (up to 60 per cent cheaper).