Uninor to deploy 5,000 telecom sites in largest ever network expansion

In its largest ever network expansion, Uninor will deploy an additional 5,000 telecom sites in its six circles - Uttar Pradesh (West), Uttar Pradesh (East), Bihar (including Jharkhand), Maharashtra and Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat - in the next five months.

On completion of the deployment, Uninor will have close to 24,000 network sites deployed across its six circles with an ability to cover 5 crore or 50 million additional population in these regions.

The expansion comes on the back of Uninor achieving breakeven by proving the sustainability of its operating model.

"With this expansion Uninor will now extend its Sabse Sasta services to millions of new subscribers in its six circles even as we strengthen our network in the areas we already cover,'' said Morten Karlsen Sorby, nominated CEO of Uninor.

''Achieving profitability in record time shows that Uninor can continue to keep its most affordable tariffs position in the market while offering a profitable business proposition to its distributors and retailers and expanding its network coverage. This will continue to be our strategy in 2014," he added.

The company has also reported an improvement in all its major business metrics for the fourth quarter of 2013.

During the quarter, Uninor has improved its average revenue per user (ARPU) by 17 per cent to reach Rs 106 as a result of improved quality of the customer base.

The company's revenues from the six circles where it offers services have improved by 36 per cent to reach Rs 8.5 billion.

Additionally, Uninor has also continued to reduce churn quarter on quarter to reach 4.6 per cent for the current period.

Uninor has reported a sequential quarter on quarter growth of 13.2 per cent in revenue at a time when the growth of the larger operators is between 0 and 5 per cent. The revenue market share for Q3 has increased by 50 bps (source: TRAI).  It is expected that Uninor gains further revenue market share in Q4 in 2013.

At present, Uninor has more than 32.7 million subscribers and offers its connections and recharges through 345,000 points of sale and 1828 distributors.