Battle for Hutch continues..

I had earlier reported that three parties (Reliance, Vodafone and Essar) were interested in buying out Hutch India. Looks like there is a twist in the tale. There is a fourth horse in the running. Any guesses who? My favourite US operator, Verizon. I wouldn’t mind a little bit of FiOS here.

But thinking about it, it is surprising that US operators haven’t exactly been aggressive in this part of the world. Gartner reports that the US mobile market is stagnating and it is only prudent that these operators look for greener pasture, and hey what is more greener than nearly 100 million subscribers and growing.

Personally, I would like Verizon to win this ( though my gut feeling says that Reliance will pull it off) since Verizon was my service provider when I was in the US for a few years and their service was brilliant.(I used to pay an arm and a leg, but then there were no Vonages then. God, I am old). There have been so many predictions about 2007 from stalwarts in this field. I am going to go ahead and make the boldest prediction of them all. The next set of significant acquistions in Telecom will come from India. Mark my word.