Hutch: Vodafone to invest more than 2 billion dollars in Indian operations

Vodafone has just managed to secure the bid for the Hutchison’s stake in Indian mobile service provider hutch. The company has now said that they are planning to invest more than two billion dollars to make Hutch the country’s biggest mobile phone company.

This means that they are going to take on their existing partner Airtel in the Indian market. Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin said in a statement: “There’s a lot of headroom to grow in the years to come. We’re committed to India; we’re here for the long haul.”

He further said: “We’ll be investing over two billion dollars in India over the next two years. We want 100 million subscribers in a few years. We want Hutchison Essar to be India’s biggest mobile company.”

Incidentally, this stake purchase is the biggest acquisition by the company ever since Sarin took over the helm three years ago. This deal is expected to close by April this year.

Sarin further said that they are aiming to make India their biggest mobile market in terms of number of subscribers in the coming years.

Incidentally, they have now signed on an infrastructure sharing pact with market leader and rival Bharti Airtel saying that this is the only way to grow in the market.