Spice sans Motorola

Motorola Inc. moved out of its cellular services joint

venture with Modicorp Network, known as Spice Telecom-cellphone operator in Punjab and

Karnataka. It has transferred its 10 percent stake to Distacom Communications (Hong Kong),

a foreign joint venture partner in the consortium. This in result has increased the equity

of Distacom to 49 percent while Modicorp continues to have the majority stakes of 51

percent. The 49 percent foreign equity has increased to Rs 270.8 crore from Rs 228.18

crore and the total paid up capital has also risen to Rs 552.6 crore from Rs 465.7 crore

in the joint venture.

Spice Telecom MD Sean Dexter, is quite confident of the

growth of its cellular service in the circles as there are lots of opportunities in the

small and medium term. He says that despite all these existing hiccups in the regulatory

and operational framework of the cellular industry, Spice has been able to muster 100,000

subscribers in the two circles and the collections are also good. "We are receiving a

monthly revenue of Rs 1,400-1,500 per subscriber," he says.