The TOI reported a couple of days back that the Telenor group is considering quitting India for good. This only means a death knell for a rather successful telco – Uninor which is a joint venture between Unitech and Telenor groups who are into real estate and telecom respectively in India and Norway. The rate at which Uninor has been handing over discounts on prepaid minutes and showing no interest in launching postpaid services, this possibility only looks more realistic than impossible.
If this happens this will be one of the historic failures of a telco in India who is just upcoming showing lots of promise. But however this will not be the end of Unitech’s telco jaunt. All Telenor have to do is to sell their stakes to the likes of Bharti or Vodafone or perhaps IDEA telecom and exit the country. Whatever happens would be an easy buy for these other companies, but not so sweet for the consumers who are using these services. With Uninor also not getting 3G service spectrum, things look bleak for the telco in the days to come!
