India’s Tata Communications has acquired Two Telecoms Consortium’s 12,5% stake in Neotel taking its stake in the local operator to 61.5%. Tata Communications is part of the US$67bn Tata group.
Neotel wants to expand its customer base by 50% in its current financial year and plans to spend money on new wireless base stations to deepen and extend its coverage. Neotel has budgeted about R500m for capital expenditure in the 2012 financial year, some of which will be directed to its consumer offerings. Spending at those levels will continue for the next three years.
Tata Communications Vinod Kumar said recently that the company had no doubt about Neotel’s ability to “execute on the market opportunity in SA”.
“The Tata Communications board believes completely in this market. The more time we spend here, the more convinced we are that there is a significant market opportunity.” — Staff reporter, TechCentral
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