Vodafone to invest Rs 8,000cr in India

British giant Vodafone's plans to invest one billion pounds (over Rs 8,000 crore) in India this year is nearly one-fifth of its global expenditure, reflecting the importance the world's largest mobile player attaches to expand in the fastest-growing telecom market.

Vodafone, which has equity interests in 25 countries besides India where it bought controlling stake in Hutchison Essar early this year, said its capital expenditure on fixed assets this fiscal would be around 4.7-5.1 billion pounds. This includes more than one billion pounds in India, announced by the company's India-born CEO Arun Sarin during his visit to the country earlier this year.

"With market penetration still around 14% and a population of over 1.1 billion, India provides a very significant opportunity for future growth," Sarin said in a statement after announcing the company's FY07 results.

Sarin said gaining control of Hutch-Essar significantly increased the company's presence in emerging markets and a key priority for the year ahead was to continue expansion of the network and capture the growth opportunity.

The company invested 4.2 billion pounds in capital expenditure in the year-ended March 31, 2007.

Sarin said the company's focus is to build on its strong track record of creating value in emerging markets. India is the world's fastest-growing telecom market, adding nearly six million subscribers a month. Hutch-Essar, which would be renamed Vodafone-Essar, is the country's fourth-largest mobile player.

Besides its robust expectations for India, Vodafone also said it expected market conditions in Europe to remain challenging in the year ahead.