By IANS
New Delhi : Russian business conglomerate AFK Sistema Tuesday opened its first office in India with a plan to gain footprints in India’s telecom, real estate and technology sectors.
The Russian billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov-promoted company is the first private Russian business to operate in India.
“India is a key market for us and offers immense business opportunities. We intend to develop a number of our businesses into India, in line with our strategy to expand our operations internationally,” Yevtushenkov told reporters here during the inauguration of the office.
Sistema acquired 10 percent stake in one of India’s telecom company Shyam Telelink Ltd in Sep last year and an additional 41 percent stake in Oct.
The company last month received a license to launch telecom services across the country.
“We are looking at a pan-India network and we will be launching our services as soon we receive the required frequencies from the government to roll out the services,” said Alexander Goncharuk, president and CEO of Sistema Telecom.
The company also intends to increase its stake to 74 percent in its Indian partnership within the next one to two years and plans to invest between $4 billion and $7 billion to roll out a pan-Indian network, officials said.
It is also in talks with leading telecom firms for sharing telecom tower infrastructure.
“India’s cellular market is very attractive and very competitive. It is a very tough market. We want to bring cheap but high-quality network in this market,” Goncharuk said.
“We will invest whatever it takes for a competitive world-class network. Our investments in mobile services will depend on the exact spectrum bands we get from the government,” he said, adding that the company can roll out its telecom services either under the dominant GSM technology or the CDMA technology platforms.
The Moscow-based company, which has a market cap of about $16 billion, is also planning to gain significant presence in the India’s technology and semiconductor space.