Orange to enter India via MVNO route on Reliance network
Reliance Mobile plans to launch France Telecom’s Orange brand in India, under a franchisee agreement, similar to the recent Tata Teleservices and UK-based Virgin Mobile deal.
For Orange, this would be a second coming as the brand was earlier operational in the India through GSM operator Hutchison-Essar (now Vodafone-Essar).
The Anil Ambani group company is in advanced talks with French Telecom co for a branding, marketing and franchisee agreement. The company plans to launch the brand by the third quarter of 2009, according to sources close to the development.
Initially, the Orange may be launched on RCom’s CDMA network – spanning across 23,000 towns and 5 lakh villages in India – and later will be extended to its 8 GSM circles. The Indian company has a total of 44.5 million subscribers in India.
Under the tie-up, both the companies are believed to be discussing introductry data-rich handsets to be sold exclusively under the Orange brand.
The companies are also planning to launch higher-end e-mail PDA devices, apart from a range of value-added services (VAS) from it’s global platform in the Indian market.
When contacted a Reliance Com spokesperson refused to comment, saying the group won’t comment on rumours.
According to industry analysts, Reliance Com is looking at a tie-up with France Telecom, due to Orange brand’s high recall value which was also previously available in India.
If the companies sign an agreement, then this would be re-entry of Orange services in India. The brand had exited the country in 2005, after its agreement with Hutchison-Essar ended. At that time Hutchison-Essar moved over to the ‘Hutch’ brand.
Orange is the leading brand of France Telecom Group, one of the world’s biggest telecommunications operators with over 153 million customers in 220 countries across the globe.
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