It's Ringing in Rural India!

On march 16th finally Vodafone and Essar shook hands. £29,350 billion Vodafone, the largest company in terms of revenue in the mobile space, is planning to move in a big way in rural areas of emerging markets such as India. In the new entity Vodafone will have 52% stake, while Essar continues to hold 33%. There were some issues like Vodafone signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with rival Bharti-Airtel on sharing infrastructure that was not favored by the Essars which was finally sorted out. Vodafone's India-born CEO Arun Sarin was quoted saying:"Our target is to achieve 20-25 percent market share in the coming years from the current 16-18 percent."

Emphasising Vodafone's focus in rolling networks in rural India, Sarin said: "We are likely to invest several billion dollars in networks in India. There's an unmet need in rural India (for mobile telephony)."

So do you think Vodafone will be successful in its rural foray? To read the whole story click here