BHEL bags PowerGrid order worth Rs.65 crore
Madurai: The Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd has secured a turnkey contract from Power Grid Corporation of India for setting up a 400/220 kv grid substation in Bihar. Valued at Rs.65 crore, the project will have to be completed in about 22 months, according to a BHEL press release.
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Tata Motors sales for April - July up 33.7 per cent
Mumbai: Tata Motors has reported a 20.3 per cent increase in its sales during July 2004 at 30, 057 vehicles. Cumulative sales for the period April-July 2004 stood at 1,14,975 vehicles (86,013 vehicles), representing a growth of 33.7 per cent. Sales of commercial vehicles in the domestic market were 13,215 units, an increase of 16 per cent, over 11,384 units in the year-ago period.

For the April-July period, sales of commercial vehicles in the domestic market were 53,092 units, a growth of 39.6 per cent. Passenger vehicle business improved its previous highest sales of June 2004, with sales of 15,275 vehicles in July 2004. This was 25.4 per cent higher over the year-ago period. Indigo sales for July stood at 3,296 vehicles and for the April-July period at 12,267. Tata Motors's exports stood at 1,567 units for July, an increase of 9.6 per cent.
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Ashok Leyland sales up 11 per cent
Chennai: Ashok Leyland Ltd has sold 3,839 vehicles in July, an 11 per cent increase over 3,449 vehicles sold by it in July 2003. Exports increased by more than three times from 192 units to 633 units. Cumulative sales for April-July 2004 were up 27 per cent, to 14,975 units from 11,796 units, according to information provided by the company.
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TRAI proposes across-the-board cut in annual licence fee
New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has proposed an across-the-board reduction in the annual licence fee from a high of 15 per cent to 6 per cent, even as it recommended an entry fee of Rs.180 crore for an all-India unified licence that will enable a new operator to roll-out any communication service, except cellular. An additional charge would be levied on those who wish to provide cellular services, which will be equivalent to what the existing operators have paid.

In a draft recommendation on unified licence, the regulator has also proposed to include broadcasting services and unrestricted Internet telephony within the gamut of unified licence, which will allow integrated players like Bharti and Reliance to foray into these segments at no extra cost. The recommendation on licence fee, if accepted, would mean tremendous costs benefit to the operators which, in turn, would result in tariff cuts for consumers.
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Cell phone customers increase by 1.66 million in July
New Delhi: India's mobile subscriber base has increased by 1.66 million customers in July 2004 to touch the 39-million mark. Reliance Infocomm continues to be the largest mobile player, with 8.45 million subscribers. The company, which has a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)-based network, added 2.66 lakh new users in July. As per the latest numbers released by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Friday, the Global System for Mobile (GSM)-based operators added 1.38 million users, taking the accumulated GSM subscriber base to 30.5 million. Among the GSM players, Bharti has a 26.15 per cent market share, with a subscriber base of 8 million, followed by State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) with a market share of 20.3 per cent and a subscriber base of 6.2 million. BSNL's is in the process of rolling out 12 million new cellular lines this year.

On the other hand, the CDMA operator's subscriber base went up to 8.3 million in July compared to 8.06 million in the previous month, riding largely on Reliance's market strength. The other CDMA player, Tata Telservices, added only 9,154 new users in July. According to COAI, Hutch's market share at the end of July stood at 19.6 per cent at a subscriber base of 5.9 million, while that of Idea was at 13.7 per cent with a subscriber base of 4.2 million. Other players such as BPL and Spice notched a market share of 7.22 per cent and 4.41 per cent, respectively, while Aircel had a market share of 4.15 per cent.
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Silicon Graphics in marketing tie up with Redington
Chennai: The US-based Silicon Graphics Inc. has appointed Redington (India) Ltd as a national distributor to distribute supercomputers, workstations, virtualisation systems and storage solutions portfolio.

For SGI, about 15 per cent of revenue comes from Asia-Pacific, including Japan, China and India. The global market for HPSC was around $10 billion, and in India it was about $200 million. Redington, which has sales offices in 32 Indian cities, would have a dedicated team to market SGI's products.
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Motorola and EMI Music tie up
Mumbai: Motorola has tied up with EMI Music to promote its newly launched E398 music phone. The music company will launch a specially designed CD called Motomix, featuring popular remixes of Disk Jockey Aqeel. Priced at Rs.15, 995, the E398 phone comes with an integrated MP3 player, VGA camera and top end features such as Bluetooth wireless technology. The phone is targeted at youth and young professionals across SEC A.

The E398 phone will be initially launched in 10 cities and will set its eyes on the growing replacement market where value added features is a prime proposition.
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