Uninor, a subsidiary of Norway's Telenor Group, is to deploy an additional 5,000 telecom sites in the six circles it has operations within the next five months.
Following this expansion, the telecom operator would have close to 24,000 sites deployed across Uttar Pradesh (West), UP East, Bihar (including Jharkhand), Maharashtra and Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. This would help in covering an additional 50 million additional population in these regions, the company said in a statement.
"With this expansion Uninor will now extend its 'Sabse Sasta services to millions of new subscribers in its six circles even as we strengthen our network in the areas we already cover,” said Morten Karlsen Sorby, nominated CEO of Uninor.
“Achieving profitability in record time shows that Uninor can continue to keep its most affordable tariffs position in the market while offering a profitable business proposition to its distributors and retailers and expanding its network coverage. This will continue to be our strategy in 2014," he added.
Uninor's licences were cancelled by Supreme Court in February 2012, and the company later bought spectrum to continue operations.
Q4 results
The company, which also reported its fourth quarter revenues on Wednesday, posted a sequential quarter-on-quarter growth of 13.2 per cent in revenues. Uninor, which is unlisted in India, posted a 50 basis points increase in revenue market share during the quarter.
Its average revenues per user, a key financial metric, improved by 17 per cent to Rs 106, while the company also continued to reduce churn quarter on quarter to 4.6 per cent for the current period.