Uninor

Telenor India

Formerly called	Telewings Communications Services Pvt Ltd
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Telecommunications
Fate	To be Acquired by Bharti Airtel
Predecessor	Unitech Wireless Limited
Founded	2009 (2009)
Headquarters	Connaught Place, New Delhi, India
Area served	India
Key people	Sharad Mehrotra (CEO)
Services	Mobile telephony Wireless internet
Owner	Bharti Airtel
Number of employees	4,010 (Q4 2016)
Website	www.telenor.in

Telenor (India) Communications Private Limited, formerly known as Uninor, is an Indian mobile network operator. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor Group. In February 2017, Telenor Group announced merging the India business with Bharti Airtel post necessary regulatory approvals.

The company Unitech Wireless Limited, a subsidiary of Unitech Group, was incorporated in 2008. The same year, the company was awarded wireless services licences for all 22 telecom circles. Subsequently, Unitech Group and Telenor Group agreed to enter a joint venture where Telenor would inject fresh equity investments of ₹61.35 billion into Unitech Wireless to take a majority stake in the company. This was operating capital invested directly in Unitech Wireless by Telenor Group. Telenor Group conducted these investments in four tranches, subsequent to approvals from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) and the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) took 67.25% ownership of Unitech Wireless. In September 2009, Unitech Wireless announced its brand name as Uninor.

Uninor launched in eight telecom circles on 3 December 2009, after completing one of the world’s largest GSM Greenfield launches which was also one of the fastest telecom roll-outs ever in India. According to Uninor, the brand was built around an ambition to serve the young, aspiring India. Six months later, 5 additional circles were launched including metropolitan areas like Mumbai and Kolkata.

Uninor has facilitated rapid scaling of the company through a lean operation model, where a large share of the network infrastructure is outsourced to business partners. Uninor’s modern equipment has enabled it to introduce targeted offerings and serve a large audience with limited spectrum. Uninor introduced dynamic pricing, a concept that gives consumers discounts that are based on current network traffic at an individual site and change with location and time. Over the summer of 2010, the company further simplified its strategy with a focus on three core areas – excellence in mass market distribution, basic services and cost efficient operations. Changes were also made to the product mix and marketing– making them simpler, more direct and clearly positioning Uninor as an affordable mass market service.