Uninor’s losses have mounted to 4.68 billion Norwegian Kroner in the first quarter of 2012 compared to a loss of 1.2 billion Kroner in the corresponding quarter last year.

The company’s revenues have doubled from 548 million Kroner to just over a billion kroner. The number of mobile subscribers increased by 3.2 million during the quarter taking the total subscription base up to 31.5 million. As a result, the EBITDA loss improved to 622 million kroner compared to 1 billion kroner last year.

Despite the Supreme Court cancelling its licences, the company made an investment of 142 million kroner on beefing up existing network. But the number of sites were reduced by 109 to 27,863 towers.

Mr Fredrik Baksaas, President and CEO, Telenor Group, said, "Uninor in India continues to demonstrate operating performance on track towards communicated targets. The strong customer uptake continues, and by the end of March, more than 30 million customers were connected to Uninor's network. We are impressed by the Uninor employees' ability to deliver at this level under the present circumstances.” Telenor has a majority stake in Uninor and has been fighting to stay invested in India although the Norwegian major has written off the Indian business.

Mr Baksaas added that the recent recommendation from the regulator on spectrum auction has severe negative impact on both the telecom industry in India and Uninor.

“If this should be approved by the Department of Telecommunications, it will be almost impossible for us to participate in the auction. We are working actively to safeguard our investment and urge the Government of India to clarify a sound framework for the industry," Mr Baksaas said.

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