Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, the UAE-based mobile group better known as ‘Etisalat,’ has paid US$900 million for a 45 percent stake in India’s Swan Telecom, one of the nine Indian operators awarded mobile licenses earlier this year. According to the Financial Times (FT), Swan has licences in 13 different areas in India, and plans to launch its first operation in April next year. “The rationale behind this deal is to put together Etisalat’s technical and commercial experience in the telecoms sector with our knowhow of the Indian market, which has its very unique peculiarities,” Atul Jhamb, managing director of Swan Telecom, told the FT, though he denied speculation that Etisalat would take over the whole group. Etisalat’s US$900 million investment values Swan Telecom at around US$2 billion, a valuation that some analysts have suggested is too high. According to the FT, two analysts that declined to be named valued Swan at between US$1.4 billion and US$1.5 billion.

Etisalat first revealed in April this year that it was in talks with several Indian telecoms companies. All the new Indian licensees are reportedly in the process of securing funding and investment in order to launch services and have attracted interest from a range of international operators. Norway’s Telenor, for example, has recently been linked with both Unitech Wireless and Loop Telecom, two other new Indian licensees.