INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - AUGUST 2006
THE MONTH THAT WAS...

MAXIS TO INVEST RS 2,200 CR IN AIRCEL CELLULAR

MALAYSIA 'S leading telecom service provider, Maxis Communications, will invest Rs 2,200 crore in the current financial year into Aircel Cellular to support the existing and additional circles targeted by the company. This implies, Aircel, which currently has operations in Chennai and Tamil Nadu telecom circles, has the investments required to expand its presence to an additional ten circles by March 2007.

Maxis, for the first time has included Aircel's financial results, while announcing its Q1 results and has said that Indian company contributed a pre-tax profit of RM 16 million to the group. Additionally, Maxis in its Q1 results has also said that it had close to 11 million customers, of which Aircel contributed 2.6 million. Maxis has also added that the capital for these investments would be raised at Aircel's level. In fact, following its results and after Maxis's 19th annual general meeting, chairman, Tan Sri Dato' Megat Zaharuddin Megat Mohd Nor, has been quoted by the local media in Malaysia stating that the company's subsidiaries, Aircel Limited of India and PT Natrindo Telepon Seluler of Indonesia provided “Maxis the opportunity to build strong foothold in two of the world's most attractive high growth, low mobile penetration markets“. Apart from Chennai and Tamil Nadu, Aircel currently is scaling up its operations in West Bengal , Orissa , Assam , North East, and Jammu & Kashmir. It is also expected to launch operations in Bihar and Himachal Pradesh within the next couple of months, while services in the Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh (E), and Uttar Pradesh (W) are expected to be available by March 2007.

Maxis is also betting big on the launch of 3G services in India next year after spectrum for the same is made available. This is because, the company in a press conference recently in Malaysia had stated that “3G is one of the key components which is expected to boost the growth of mobile data”.