Videocon Telecom will shut down its operation in Punjab circle on February 15th 2016, the company said in a statement displayed on its website. The telco also requested existing customers in the circle to port out to a different and urged them to exhaust any remaining balance in prepaid accounts before Feb 15th. Videocon however did not provide any reason for the closure of service. The development was first reported by TelecomTalk. Note that Videocon’s mobile network operations are owned by Mohali-based Quadrant Technologies. According to TRAI’s recent telecom data, Quadrant had 29.78 lakh subscribers in Punjab circle as of October 2016. Out of this only 49.53% of subscribers were active users during the same time-period. Note that between September to October 2016, Videocon added 3000 new subscribers in Punjab circle. Videocon currently has operations in states including Haryana and Madhya Pradesh apart from Punjab, but its operations has been on a standstill. The company sold its 1800MHz spectrum in 6 circles to Bharti Airtel for about Rs 4428 crore in May last year. The deal between Airtel and Videocon was originally announced in March after Idea Cellular had called off an earlier deal with Videocon for the same spectrum. Note that Videocon Group does not report their telecom segment revenues with their quarterly/annual results. The last known financials for Videocon Telecom was during Q3 FY16 when it reported a quarterly loss of Rs Rs 25.9 crore which reduced from Rs 44.6 crore in the same quarter previous year (Q2 FY15). Plans to comeback via the MVNO route…
