18th October 2007 : Leadcom voted "AIM International Company of the Year for 2007"




Main Web Site : http://www.leadcom-is.com/

Investor Relations Email : investorsinfo@leadcom-is.com

From this article it looks like Ericsson are still in negotiations for another potential billion dollar deal with Bharti Airtel, just after they gave a 900m $ one to NSN. (looks like NSN and E are cleaning up the India market, and its good that Leadcom is a preferred supplier to both).


http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page94?oid=144655&sn=Detail


Nokia Siemens ups the ante in India market

Bharti Airtel signs $900 million deal to expand service.

Daniel Thomas, Wall Street Journal

04 July 2007

LONDON -- Nokia Siemens Networks raised the stakes in its fight for the lucrative Indian telecommunications-equipment market, striking a $900 million memorandum-of-understanding deal with Bharti Airtel Ltd., the country's largest mobile-phone operator by customers.

Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Nokia Corp. of Finland and Siemens AG of Germany, will expand Bharti's GSM mobile-phone service across eight regions of India, as well as improve fixed-line and international-calling capabilities.

The deal comes on the heels of Nokia Siemens's announcement Monday that it plans to invest $100 million over the next three years to build a manufacturing plant for mobile network equipment in India's southern Tamil Nadu region. It added it was expanding its research center in Bangalore.

Nokia Siemens Networks, which competes against Sweden's Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, will expand Bharti Airtel's mobile network in these eight regions: Mumbai, Maharashtra and Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand, Orissa, Kolkata and West Bengal.

Nokia will also expand Bharti's fixed-line telephony network, installing 1.8 million phone ports, and allow as many as 4.5 million customers to make international calls through a prepaid phone service.

A spokeswoman for Ericsson said it was still in negotiations with Bharti Airtel regarding a similar contract but declined to specify a financial figure. In August 2006, Ericsson was awarded a $1 billion contract to expand Bharti Airtel's GSM network in 15 other regions of India.

"Bharti Airtel is undertaking a massive expansion and integration exercise across its mobile and fixed networks to significantly augment its service-delivery capacity," said Manoj Kohli, Bharti Airtel's chief executive and president.

In the past year, India has emerged as one of the world's fastest growing mobile-phone markets -- alongside China -- adding about six million new phone users a month. Meanwhile, Nokia Siemens's main market, Europe, is seeing the mobile-phone market reach saturation.

In May, Nokia's mobile-phone division launched seven inexpensive handsets aimed predominantly at the India market, to take advantage of this huge growth.

GSM, or global system for mobile communications, the technology Nokia Siemens is installing for Bharti, is the most popular mobile-phone technology standard in the world, used by more than two billion people.

Separately, Nokia Siemens Networks launched a device aimed at boosting third-generation mobile-phone coverage inside homes and office buildings.

The company launched the 3G Femto Home Access Solution to try to overcome the issue of poor indoor coverage. Third-generation coverage from traditionally used radio masts can sometimes become distorted or weakened by building structures, resulting in worse indoor coverage.

The technology will allow users to boost mobile-phone coverage -- including faster data downloads -- inside buildings by plugging an indoor transmitter into their broadband network. The mobile-phone operator can then use the customer's Internet broadband connection to improve the coverage.

PP thanks for all your work here, i got in a few months ago at 60p, contemplated topping up at 51p in the correction shortly after, i wish i had, but this seems to be heading one way only now...

going from strength to strength now, PP excellent posts, been in since 45p traded along the way, my star stock at the moment, you can expect a good flow of good news over the next 6 months.

My first contact with the market this week (been away for a few days), LEAD doing very nicely now, and with lots of newsflow to come maybe it'll go and test the first Panmure target of 89p. At the risk of sounding boring I would also like to thank PP for his hard work, it is appreciated PP, many thanks.
2517

No probs all, glad its of some use to you all when your doing your research.

I can see the seller staying with us to the 80p levels imo, but after that we should be clear, and we should see the move up through 90p and 100p being swift and not holding back, imv.

BSNL could be going to a full scale strike soon, Mr Raja (the new minister) is certainly not getting the people on his side, by making the BSNL order a political back stabbing game imo.

The good thing is of course Leadcom are busting expectations without BSNL, and it remains just "cake icing" if it comes in.

Given they expect to beat the new revenue target without BSNL and are very comfortable with the EPS forecasts without BSNL, this whole order really is not that important now imv, yes it will be nice and boost the figures again, but even without it LEAD are putting in around 40% Y-O-Y growth, as is the norm now it seems for Leadcom.




http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/BSNL_employees_to_go_on_strike_on_July_11/articleshow/2178404.cms

BSNL employees to go on strike on July 11

PTI[ THURSDAY, JULY 05, 2007 04:40:48 PM]

NEW DELHI: BSNL employees and executives across the country will go on a strike on July 11 to press the government to immediately place the purchase order for the 45.5 million GSM contract to the selected vendors.

In case the issue was not settled soon, the strike would be indefinite, the Joint Forum of BSNL and MTNL Unions said in a statement here.

In a separate statement, the Forum opposed government's reported proposal to reduce the original GSM tender by half, saying it would result in BSNL lagging in competition.

Quoting media reports, the Forum said private operators would take advantage with the new 3G technology grabbing the present and future subscribers.

Reducing the order by 50 per cent, as media reports suggested, would adversely affect BSNL's capacity to provide sufficient connections, it said.

"Such a modification and reduction is not at all acceptable to staff unions", V A N Namboodiri, convener of the Joint Forum, said.

The Forum had earlier said BSNL could lose Rs 30,000 crore if the GSM tender was re-issued.

The two-month delay in procuring equipments has already caused a huge loss to BSNL. The company's rank in terms of mobile subscriber base has come down to fourth from second a few months ago. In the last two months, BSNL has lost about Rs 110 crore revenue due to the delay, he had said.

Communications Minister A Raja has reportedly asked BSNL to renegotiate the tender price from $107 a line to below $100, which the lowest bidder Ericsson is believed to have opposed.

PP, are things ok with Leadcom? Seems to be a lot of selling past few days. Be grateful for your opinion. Thanks

chart below still looks fine to me, but assuming i have understood PTH correctly, if rsi now drops below previous significant low at 60 then SELL may be the signal

last time that happened it went up 12%, fundies are strong, hold for more good news and great interims and results when due.

Current weakness merely profit taking, would be very surprised to see this drop below 68p

Looks like some kind of decision this coming Monday on the BSNL saga.

Some nice little facts in there, that if the 22.5 million lines of 3G are removed from this tender, a future tender for 90 million 3G lines for BSNL will be called....now......wow, thats big. It also shows that even if this tender goes ahead as is now, then Raja will allow BSNL to tender for 67.5 million 3G lines once the 3G policy is set, by default.

A further article at the bottom highlights Bharti Aitel doing very well, of course it will be at the expense of BSNL who are losing potential customers hand over fist with this ongoing tender problem.


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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/BSNL_board_to_review_GSM_tender_on_Monday/articleshow/2202727.cms


BSNL board to review GSM tender on Monday

14 Jul, 2007, 0320 hrs IST, TNN

NEW DELHI: The BSNL board will meet on Monday to review its multi-billion dollar GSM tender for 45.5 million GSM lines for which the PSU had shortlisted Ericsson and Nokia. According to a senior BSNL executive, the board during its meeting would examine various options, including going ahead with the tender in the present form, limiting it to only 2G lines or calling for a fresh tender.

The managing committee is considering all the options we will come out with something acceptable to all, BSNL director finance SD Saxena told newspersons.

During the board meet, the PSU will also finalise its replies to telecom minister A Rajas queries on the tender where Swedish telecom major Ericsson had emerged as the lowest bidder at $107 per line.

This board meet comes as a five-member committee, set up by BSNL to look into the re-evaluation of the tender and prepare a response to Mr Rajas queries, has submitted its findings to the BSNL management. The PSU board will now study the findings before presenting it to the minister.

Last month Mr Raja had asked BSNL to negotiate a lower price, less than $100 per line, with Ericsson for the $4.8 billion contract. When Ericsson refused to reduce prices any further, the minister, had advised BSNL to drop the 3G component in the tender and thereby halve the total size of the contract to about 23 million lines.

Mr Raja had also advised BSNL to opt for a fresh tender for about 90 million lines exclusively for 3G after the 3G spectrum policy is announced.

At the same time, Mr Raja in a note to BSNL has also questioned the logic of awarding the contract to Ericsson when Motorola had supplied similar equipment to public sector MTNL at much lower price and asked the PSU to clarify the reasons for Motorolas disqualification from the tendering process. BSNL has always maintained and had even told the Delhi HC that Motorola was disqualified as it failed to pass the technical evaluation tests.

As reported first by ET, if BSNL were to drop the 3G component from the tender, it will have to reconsider the bids of Motorola and Chinese equipment maker ZTE, both of whom were disqualified by BSNL on the grounds that they had failed to meet the stringent technical criteria stipulated by the tender, especially with regard to 3G component, which constituted 25% of the 45.5 million lines.

Earlier this week, BSNL employees had gone on a day-long strike to protest the delay in awarding the contract. The employee unions, when calling off the strike had given the PSU management 15 days time to resolve the issue.

Last year, following its disqualification, Motorola had approached the Delhi High Court seeking a stay in awarding the contract, stating that its bid was Rs 3,500 crore lower than that of Ericsson which had quoted a price of around Rs 22,594 crore. Motorola had, however, withdrawn the case recently.

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http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage/news.asp?id=284605

India GSM mobile firms add 5.4 mln users in June

July 13, 2007

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's GSM mobile phone operators added 5.4 million users in June from May, an industry body said on Friday.

Total GSM subscriptions rose to 136 million from 130.6 million in May, the Cellular Operators Association of India said in a statement.

Bharti Airtel Ltd. retained the top spot with a 31.4 percent share in the world's fastest-growing mobile phone market in the world.

Interims will be released on the 9th of August 2007 :

http://www.leadcom-is.com/IntegratedSolutions//1/38/755.aspx


.

Broker Forecasts :

2007 PTP 11.51m
2007 EPS 5.88p

Current year forecast PER of times 11.9 @70.5p

----------------------------------

2008 PTP 15.1m
2008 EPS 7.81p

Forward forecast PER of times 9 @70.5p

Earlier post out of date :

Ammended broker forecasts after last update and upgrades :


Panmure Gordon :

2007 EPS 6.4p

Current year PER of times 11.01

2008 EPS of 9.4p

Foreward forecast PER of times 7.5

------------------------------------------

Blue Oar forecast :

2007 EPS 5.9p

2008 EPS 9.4p

Papal, you're confusing me with all these broker notes updates ! The future, is it good or is it not so good :-).

Cynic, you misundstood, although I see why you should think otherwise.

pth

Darradev, as it looks now, very good imv ;)

Papal, not convinced there is further mileage in the short term. Have had a decent run and decided to take some profits for now. Will watch for a low spot again in the coming months.

Good luck to current and future holders.

Well done Darradev, I am happy to keep on going.


Whilst the BSNL saga continues and appears to be settling for about half of the initial planned amount, Reliance now is coming on stream with an even larger expansion than BSNL planned.


http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?leftnm=lmnu9&subLeft=2&autono=291528&tab=r

RCom plans big bang investment

BS Reporter / Mumbai July 18, 2007

To hive off BPO arm, eyes SEZ to 'unlock value'.

Reliance Communications Chairman Anil Ambani today announced investments of Rs 20,000 crore for the next one year, aimed at catapulting the mobile services operator to one of the top five global telecom companies.

The proposed investment the largest ever by a telecom services operator in the country will be for network expansion through 23,000 new mobile towers as well as for the launch of direct-to-home and Wi-max services.

In this initiative, Reliance Communications plans to cover 23,000 towns or every single habitation in the country with a population of 1,000 or more.

While addressing the shareholders of Reliance Communications at the companys annual general meeting here today, Ambani also announced important steps to unlock shareholder wealth in the company.

It will hive off its business process outsourcing (BPO) division into a separate company and will set up an 18-acre special economic zone (SEZ) at the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge Centre on the outskirts of Mumbai.

Maximisation of shareholder value is the key mantra for us, Ambani told the Reliance Communications shareholders. The companys stock fell 2.31 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange today, while the 30-share Sensex fell a little over 0.01 per cent.

The BPO division of Reliance Communications employs 7,800 people across various locations, providing multi-lingual support to verticals like telecom, banking financial services and insurance, utilities and entertainment.

The proposed SEZ at the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City, for which the company had earlier received the governments approvals, will focus on IT and IT-enabled services.

Reliance Communications is the third-largest mobile services operator in the country, after state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Sunil Mittal-controlled Bharti Airtel Ltd.

But Ambani has nurtured ambitions to grow the business fast ever since he got it in a settlement with his older brother, Mukesh, over two years ago.

He had earlier tried hard to acquire Hutch Essar, which would have made him the leading telecom operator in the country. He, however, lost the race to Vodafone.

Bharti going to splash the cash too ;)


http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c.php?leftnm=10&bKeyFlag=BO&autono=291531&chkFlg=

Bharti to seal network deal with Ericsson

IT'S WIN SOME, LOSE SOME FOR SWEDISH MAJOR

Bs Reporters / Mumbai/New Delhi July 18, 2007



Bharti Airtel, the countrys second-largest telecom services company, is close to inking a deal with Ericsson for managing and expanding its network.

The deal, which is expected to be valued between $1 billion and $2 billion, will be announced in a few days.

The deal with Ericsson closely follows the telecom operator coming closer to winning a scaled down version of the controversial Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) mega-GSM order.

Ericsson, which was the lowest bidder for the 45.5 million lines order, is expected to be called for price renegotiation by the BSNL board but for a much smaller order now.

When asked about the deal, Akhil Gupta, joint managing director of Bharti Airtel, merely said no comment. Ericsson executives also declined to comment.

The deal is believed to be spread over three years and will involve implementing and managing the GSM majors network in 15 circles in the country.

A few weeks ago, Bharti Airtel had awarded a $900 million (Rs 3,690 crore) network expansion contract to global communications services provider Nokia Siemens Networks.

Bharti is not new to Ericsson. In June 2005, the Swedish company had signed a $250 million deal for managing capacity in rural India for Bharti Airtel networks.

Yep, 2 Billion dollar deal for Ericsson from Bharti :


http://www.bloomberg.com:80/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=aZLapz5IU1UI&refer=india

Ericsson Wins $2 Billion Order From India's Bharti Airtel

By Ashok Bhattacharjee and Shailendra Bhatnagar

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- Ericsson AB, the world's largest maker of wireless networks, said it won an order worth $2 billion from Bharti Airtel Ltd., India's largest wireless service provider.

Ericsson, which manages Bharti's networks in 15 of the 23 zones that make up India's telecommunications market, will provide equipment that runs on the Global System for Mobile Communications, or GSM, technology. The two-year contract is Ericsson's largest so far, the company said in a statement in New Delhi.

``This contract is an important part of realizing Bharti's vision of a converged network and of expanding coverage in rural India,'' Mats Granryd, managing director at Ericsson India, said in the statement.

Overseas wireless network makers such as Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent are competing for network orders in India, where phone companies are investing to accommodate new subscribers. The South Asian country, one of the fastest-growing mobile-phone markets in the world, added 5.39 million subscribers on the GSM platform in June.

Ericsson, based in Stockholm, won a $1 billion, three-year contract from Bharti in August 2006 to manage the design, development and deployment of its network, enabling expansion in rural India.

Bharti, based in New Delhi, on July 3 gave a $900 million order to Nokia Siemens Networks to expand its wireless networks in the remaining eight zones.

Ericsson and Nokia Siemens were also short-listed by state- run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., India's largest telephone company, to supply mobile-phone equipment valued at as much as $9.5 billion.

India's Communications Minister A. Raja said on June 1 he wants Bharat Sanchar to renegotiate the contract with Ericsson and lower the price to below $100 per line from $107.

Bharat Sanchar said July 13 new bids for the supply may be an option.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ashok Bhattacharjee in New Delhi at ashokb@bloomberg.net ; Shailendra Bhatnagar in Mumbai at sbhatnagar3@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: July 18, 2007 05:22 EDT