Indian mobile phone company Reliance Communications will award a $1-billion, eight-year contract to US-French telecom equipment supplier Alcatel-Lucent, the companies said on Wednesday.
The contract, which extends the scope of an existing joint venture, is to manage Reliance’s network, they said in a statement.
“Our existing joint venture is getting a new shape, which we are expanding into a multi-year contract,” Alcatel-Lucent’s Asia-Pacific president Rajeev Singh-Molares told reporters in Mumbai.
Nearly 4,000 employees from Reliance Communications, India’s third-largest mobile phone firm, will move to Alcatel as part of the project.
“India is one of the most important markets in the world. We have seen challenges in the market but believe that they are coming to an end,” Singh-Molares told reporters in the financial capital.
India's Reliance and Alcatel-Lucent in $1 bln deal
