Vodafone agreed to pick up a 10 percent stake in Bharti Tele-Ventures for $1.5 billion. The company will acquire 4.4 percent directly from Bharti and the other 5.6 percent from VC firm Warburg Pincus. Bharti currently has over 14 million mobile customers and controls about 22 percent of India's mobile market. Though Bharti's most recent quarterly profits did not meet expectations, analysts see growth in the firm's future. India claims 66 million mobile subscribers with 2.5 million signing on each month. The country is part of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) group of rapidly emerging markets.
For more on Vodafone's investment in Bharti:
- see this article from the BBC