This is translation from Telegraph newspaper clipping of Hindi news above
Voda-Idea merger on track
New Delhi, Sept. 27: Vodafone India's merger with Idea Cellular is on track and will be completed within 2018, Vodafone India chief Sunil Sood said here today.
Sood, who was speaking on the sidelines of the India Mobile Congress in New Delhi, said the merger process took time as it went through various stages, including approvals from the CCI, Sebi, the NCLT and the telecom department.
"We are going ahead on schedule," he said.
Earlier this year, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular had agreed to merge their operations to create the country's largest telecom operator worth more than $23 billion with a 35 per cent market share.
At present, Bharti Airtel leads the telecom market in India having 24 per cent of the subscriber pie. After the merger, Vodafone, which already has 18 per cent of the subscriber base, will add 16 per cent from Idea.
The Vodafone-Idea merged entity will have an enterprise value of over Rs 1,60,000 crore. Vodafone will own a 45.1 per cent stake in the new firm, while the Aditya Birla group, which runs Idea, will own a 26 per cent stake. The remaining 28.9 per cent will be held by other shareholders.
The merger agreement is based on equal rights and shareholding between Idea Cellular's promoters and Vodafone Group.
India is the world's second-largest telecom market after China but a bruising price war has slashed profitability ever since Reliance Jio entered the market.
Jio has focused on data and offered free voice calls, forcing others to follow suit. This in turn meant huge cuts in profitability and losses for many operators.
Earlier, Bharti Airtel had said it would buy out Telenor India in a deal which analysts saw as being prompted by competition from Reliance Jio.
The consolidation in the industry is likely to result in four big players fighting for market share - Airtel-Telenor, Jio, Vodafone-Idea and Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications-Aircel, said analysts.