Vodafone Buys Into India
When Vodafone was going through its big acquisition streak, all the talk was how its economies of scale would lower its costs across the company, and its global reach would let it take innovations from different country units and implement them around the world. For instance, it took J-Phone’s J-Sky content system and used it as the basis for Vodafone Live!. The plan’s had its pitfalls, too, though, for example trying to introduce foreign phones in Japan failed miserably. But as the company still portrays this “global power, local expertise”, it’s still sticking to what it knows, today saying it has bought a 10% stake in Indian carrier Bharti Tele-Ventures. It’s not a surprising move, really, as India remains one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world, and Bharti, a top-3 carrier, is something of a hot property: SingTel, southeast Asia’s biggest carrier, already owns 31%, and wants to increase its stake. While Vodafone’s 10% might seem like a small stake, there’s some speculation more of Bharti may soon come up for grabs.
