DoT disallows GSM, CDMA in same circle
New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has said that mobile operators cannot provide services on GSM and CDMA platforms simultaneously in one circle under one licence.

Hence the department has informed Reliance Communications that it would have to vacate the CDMA spectrum in those circles where it wants to migrate to GSM technology.

The company has licences for both cellular and unified access services in eight circles - Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Orissa and North East. Therefore, it will continue offering mobility both on CDMA and GSM technologies.

However, in the rest of the country, it will have to choose between GSM and CDMA technologies. Reliance officials have been saying the company will continue to offer both technologies to the subscribers.

The DoT has also said that the company will be allotted GSM spectrum in a phased manner so that it can shift its CDMA subscribers to GSM and the services do not get disturbed. The DoT had asked Reliance to submit its business plans, which it has not done.

Industry sources say it is unclear whether Reliance Communications will actually shift from CDMA to GSM platform or whether it will enhance its investments across both technologies as it operates both the services in eight circles.

DoT officials say the subscribers can easily be shifted to GSM technology in a phased manner. The company can be allotted more and more GSM spectrum as it vacates the CDMA spectrum.
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Godrej Consumer acquires hair-colour biz in S. Africa
Mumbai: Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) will buy the hair colour business of South African company Rapidol, UK, as well as its subsidiary Rapidol international, for an undisclosed sum.

The two units have a combined turnover of 52 million South African Rand, (about Rs33 crore) in 2005, according to a GCPL note. The acquisition gives Godrej access to a large ethnic hair-colour market via a profit-making company. It would also augment GCPL's topline and bottomline, the company told the Bombay Stock Exchange.

According to Godrej, Rapidol, South Africa is a profit making company that manufactures and markets premium hair-colourants in the African market. The acquisition of the Inecto and Soflene brands will widen Godrej's portfolio of hair colourant and hair care offerings and provide access to the large and growing African market. Godrej will also introduce some of its own products there, via Rapidol's established distribution network.

Rapidol South Africa owns Inecto, an internationally known brand, popular with consumers across South Africa and the African Continent. GCPL shares remained flat at Rs 644 on the BSE.
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Indoco acquires La NovaChem
Mumbai: Indoco Remedies has acquired La NovaChem's bulk-drug manufacturing facility at Patalganga, Maharashtra through acquiring the shares of La NovaChem (India) Pvt Ltd, the company that owns the facility. This makes La NovaChem a 100 per cent subsidiary of Indoco.

The buy was especially attractive for Indoco Remedies as La NovaChem's bulk-drug facility is built on standards set by the US regulatory authority, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Indoco will look to apply for US FDA approval. The acquisition of La NovaChem facility is part of Indoco's strategy to build its in-house bulk-drug manufacturing capability both for the domestic business, as well as exports.

Indoco is also looking to expand its business from other geographies, such as the regulated markets of US and Europe. Indoco's Goa plant for sterile ophthalmic preparations has been approved by the USFDA. It will facilitate the production and export of the company's ophthalmic preparations to the US.

Indoco shares closed at Rs249.85, up 1.77 on the BSE.
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Kyocera to set up CDMA handset unit in India
New Delhi: Japanese handset maker Kyocera is looking to produce its handsets in India. The company is planning to get the handsets made at Flextronics' Indian unit on a contract basis.

At present, Kyocera has an arrangement with Flextronics' production unit in China to manufacture handsets.

The company said it is looking at the option of expanding its relationship with Flextronics in China and extend it to the company's Indian manufacturing unit. It said it was awaiting for Flextronics to complete the process of setting up its plant in India.
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Airlines hike fuel prices as ATF prices rise
New Delhi: Jet Airways, Air Sahara, Indian, and Air Deccan, have announced that they would be increasing fuel surcharge being levied on domestic air travel from Rs300 to Rs500. Jet Airways, Air Sahara, and Indian plan to imposed the hike from July 7, and Air Deccan is yet to decide on the date.

Air turbine fuel prices have been rising continuously recently. In April the average price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) in the domestic market was around Rs38,000 a kilolitre, which touched Rs42,000 in June, and has now gone beyond Rs43,600.
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P&G acquires 41 per cent in Gillette
New Delhi: Procter & Gamble India Holdings has acquired 41.02 per cent stake held by Gillette Company US in Gillette India Ltd. This is following the global acquisition by P&G of Gillette, last year.

GIL informed the National Stock Exchange that Procter & Gamble India Holdings, BV, Netherlands, acquired 1.33 crore shares aggregating to 41.02 per cent of the total paid-up capital of Gillette India Ltd on June 29.
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Saregama to offer music on mobiles
Kolkata: RPG group entertainment company, Saregama India, is in talks with mobile phone manufacturers and operators for selling music tracks. Also known as HMV, Saregama is currently in the process of digitising its entire stock of musical tracks at its Dum Dum factory. The process is scheduled to be over within the three to four months.

The company has more than three lakh music tracks, out of whiich 1.70 lakh have already been digitised. Company officials said it has music tracks in as many as 23 languages and in every genre of music.

Saregama is in talks with leading cell phone operators such as Airtel and Hutch for selling its music tracks, which could be used as ring tones, ring-back tones, background music and SMS. It is also holding similar discussions with cell phone manufacturers such as Nokia and Motorola.

Saregama also holds the home video distribution rights of five leading Hollywood producers, including Warner Brothers.
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Honda Motor launches Civic
New Delhi: Honda Motor Co has launched its premium sedan `Civic' in India. The manual-transmission model comes priced at Rs10.75 lakh and the automatic one at Rs11.45 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

Honda Motor president and CEO, Takeo Fukui, said the new Civic model, which comes with a 1.8 litre petrol engine will further consolidate the company's position in the Indian market.

According to Fukui, Honda car sales in India are expected to grow 50 per cent this fiscal and finish the year at around 62,000 units, of which 10,000 units would be that of the Civic. The car, to be manufactured at Honda's Greater Noida facility, will have 68 per cent localisation that will be scaled up to 80 per cent within the next two years, the company said.

The company is also considering the consolidation of its holdings in different ventures in India under a single, fully-owned company, Honda Motor India (Pvt) Ltd.

While this company will take care of logistics for spare parts beginning with the automobile business, Honda is looking at the possibility of transferring the different shareholdings of Honda Japan in different ventures in India to the new company. Honda has interests in the two-wheeler and car business in India, apart from power products, which is a separate division.

The company has a joint venture with the Munjals in the publicly listed Hero Honda where it holds 26 per cent, and has partnered the Shrirams for the cars and power products business.

The Shrirams currently hold 0.1 per cent in Honda Siel Cars India and one per cent in Honda Siel Power Products. Honda also has a fully-owned subsidiary, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), which manufactures scooters and bikes. The company said it is consulting related agency lawyers on the issue.
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Tata Motors reports 37 pc rise in June sales
Mumbai: Tata Motors has reported total sales of 45,223 vehicles (including exports) for June 2006, a growth of 37 per cent over 33,018 vehicles in June last year.

Total sales of commercial vehicles in the domestic market stood at 21,565 units (15,530 units), up 38.9 per cent. Sales of medium and heavy commercial vehicles stood at 11,808 units, up 23.3 per cent, while light commercial vehicle (LCV) sales stood at 9,757 units, up 63.8 per cent.

Monthly sales of the newly launched Ace crossed the 5,000-mark for the first time. Cumulative sales of commercial vehicles in the domestic market for the fiscal stood at 63,140, an increase of 69.5 per cent over the previous year.

Cumulative sales of medium and heavy vehicles stood at 36,606, up 59.1 per cent, while light commercial vehicles sales stood at 26,534, up 86.4 per cent. The passenger vehicle business reported total sales of 18,463 vehicles in the domestic market in June 2006, an increase of 27.8 per cent. The Indica sold 12,271 units, up 41 per cent, while the Indigo family registered sales of 2,885 units, a decline of 1.7 per cent.

The Sumo and the Safari accounted for sales of 3,307 units, a growth of 17.5 per cent. The new Safari range launched in the latter part of the month enabled the model to cross the 1,000-mark in a month for the first time, at 1,011 units.

Cumulative sales of passenger vehicles in the domestic market for the fiscal stood at 49,906 units, an increase of 21.2 per cent. Cumulative sales of the Indica at 33,173 units registered a growth of 32.7 per cent, while cumulative sales of the Indigo family at 8,316 units registered a decline of six per cent.

Sales in the entry mid-size segment continued to decline, which began in 2005-06, and the Indigo range has increased its market share in a declining segment.
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United Breweries to acquire French vineyard
Mumbai: United Breweries is acquiring French sparkling wine maker Bouvet-Ladubay from U.S. private equity group Starwood Capital.

The terms of the purchase were not revealed.

UB has been in talks with Bouvet-Ladubay for an acquisition price of around $15 million.
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Suzuki to build Nissan cars for Europe in India
Tokyo: Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp. is planning to start manufacturing a new compact car in India for Nissan Motor Co. This car will be sold in Europe according to officials in Suzuki.

Last month, the two Japanese auto makers signed a broad-based pact to supply each other with vehicles and share manufacturing facilities around the world to boost efficiency. Under the agreement, Suzuki was to develop and build a new compact car for Nissan for the European markets, starting in 2008. The partners provided no other details at the time.

The car would in the A-category, the smallest segment of the Indian market, and would be sold in Europe under Nissan's badge. It would be based on one of its 660cc minivehicles sold in Japan, and re-engineered to carry a 1-litre and 1.2-litre gasoline engine, a company source said. A diesel version would not be available due to size factors.

Suzuki has a 500,000 cars-a-year plant in India and is building a second one, with initial annual capacity of 100,000 cars, due to start operations by year-end. The plant will be expanded to 250,000 units after March 2008.
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Rajesh Exports eyes US, Europe retail foray
Bangalore: Jewellery firm Rajesh Exports planning to foray into the retail markets of the United States, Europe, Australia and India to boost its profit margins, its chairman said.

Rajesh Mehta chairman of Rajesh Exports said, the company was looking at joint ventures and takeover of some existing chains there. He said operating profit margin from retail would likely go up to 13-14 percent in three years' time, from 2.9 percent on exports in the financial year that ended in March.

Rajesh Exports posted a revenue of Rs550 crore ($1.20 billion) in 2005/06, with exports contributing about 90 percent.
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Oracle revenues grow 18 per cent in Asia Pacific Japan
Hyderabad: Oracle Corporation has registered an 18 per cent increase in revenues in the Asia Pacific and Japan region against those of last fiscal. The company registered revenues of $2.02 billion in the region for fiscal year 2006 ended May 31. The region contributed about 14 per cent of the corporation's total revenues.

Oracles's results were on the back of a surge in its application for new licences that grew by 69 per cent, while database and middleware grew by 13 per cent.

Derek Williams head of Asia Pacific region and Japan said in India Oracle continues to expand its presence and has about 9,500 people working across all areas. Asked about plans for i-flex and its flagship FlexCube product, Williams said that this was a strategic investment for Oracle and it was for i-flex to chart out its strategies in the market place. Oracle has been marketing Reveleus, the Basel II product, which has received an excellent response in the market.

The company claimed that the Oracle Database has managed to outpace competition in the region and continued to lead the relational database management system (RDBMS).
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Vedanta opens bids for 2,400-mw nuclear plant
New Delhi: Vedanta Resources Plc the London-based metals and mining group has invited preliminary bids for setting up a 2,400-mw nuclear power plant in India.

The initiative follows on reports that the Indian government has been working on a policy to allow private sector companies venture into production of nuclear power.

Vedanta, owned by entreprenuer Anil Agarwal, said it had been encouraged by the policy changes proposed by the Indian government. The company has invited expressions of interest from global firms with experience in building and maintaining nuclear power plants of a size similar to the proposed one.

Vedanta, which has operations in India, Australia, and Zambia, with extensive interests in aluminium, copper, zinc, and lead, said it plans to award the contract for the 2,400-mw nuclear power station on a build, operate and maintain basis.

The group is the largest producer of captive power in India, with existing and gross-generation-under-implementation capacity of over 3000-mw.

At present, production of atomic energy is the preserve of the Centre, with Appendix-III of the Industrial Licensing Policy reserving this strategic utility for the public sector.
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