Reliance Communications to separate GSM and CDMA operations: report

A new round of restructuring is under way at Reliance Communications, aimed at separating the mobile phone major's growing GSM business from the lagging CDMA operations, which might even be sold off at a later stage to cut debt, The Economic Times reported.

The newspaper quoted people familiar with the matter as saying, Nilanjan Mukherjee, currently the chief marketing officer, was set to head the CDMA business of the company, which, at one time, was the second-largest mobile phone operator in India but has since dropped to the fourth place.

Former Bharti Airtel zonal head Ramesh Menon is joining the company to handle GSM, with both reporting to Gurdeep Singh, the current chief of the company's wireless operations.

The report said, citing people quoted earlier, that the separation of businesses, part of the third company-wide rejig exercise since December 2011, was taking place as CDMA technology for voice which was shrinking globally required a strategy independent of the GSM unit.

Nearly 80 per cent of mobile phone subscribers in India used GSM technology while the rest were on CDMA.

According to one of the people, the company might look for a buyer for its CDMA business given it had spectrum and certain assets that might be valuable to someone launching 3G services.

This would bring in a substantial amount of cash to help pay the company's debt, which stood at Rs41,170 crore at end of September.

The CDMA licence would expire in six years.