India's Videocon Group has become the country's 13th mobile network after it launched its initial GSM service in Chennai. The company expects to roll out its coverage to 100 towns and cities over the next 100 days and be classed as a pan-India operator 100 days after that. The company is also a named bidder in India's forthcoming 3G license auction.
"Although it may seem like the market is flooded with new players, the truth is that the teledensity of India is still only 46%. So there is a large untapped market that we plan to target with our attractive plans," said Venugopal Dhoot, chairman, Videocon Group. "With our target customer base of 100 million customers, we want to be among the top three players in this market in the next three years."
"In this industry, you don't make profits from day one. It's a volume driven business where value-added services (VAS) too plays a significant role. Besides, the Videocon brand has always stood for value for money," Dhoot added.
The company has plans to invest around Rs 14,000 crore (US$3 billion) over the next three years on building out its network and has already secured a tower sharing deal that gives it access to around 70,000 towers.
The company expects to break into profit in 2013.
Last year, the company was widely rumoured to be in talks to buy Motorola's handset division. An acquisition would have been difficult as Motorola's handset division wass independently valued at around US$3.8 billion, whilst Videocon Group valued itself at US$2.5 billion (independent valuations are around the US$2 billion mark) at the time.
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