SK Telecom seeking out Indian partner

SK Telecom Co. confirmed yesterday that it is planning to enter India’s mobile telecommunications market through a partnership with an Indian company. Media outlets in India reported over the weekend that SK Telecom, Korea’s largest cell phone service provider, will buy a 33 percent stake in India’s Tata Teleservices Ltd. “We are talking with major Indian mobile telecommunications companies for a partnership, including Tata Teleservices Ltd.,” said Kim Hye-jin, an SK Telecom spokeswoman. “But it is not true that we are to buy the 33 percent stake in Tata. Nothing has been decided yet.” Ms. Kim said the Indian market has great potential because only 55 million Indians out of the 1.1 billion population are using cell phones. Tata Teleservices, a unit of Tata Group, is one of the four largest mobile telecommunications companies in India. India uses both the code division multiple access, or CDMA, standard, which Korea uses, and the Global System for Mobile communication, or GSM, standard, which is popular in Europe. by Park Sung-ha