Telecom Lead India: Change of guard at Maxis-owned
Aircel.
Aircel, India’s fifth largest mobile service provider,
based on mobile subscribers, has appointed Kaizad Heerjee as its COO. Before
joining Aircel, Heerjee worked at U Mobile, Malaysian telecommunications
company, as its chief executive officer.
Heerjee will take the responsibilities of Gurdeep Singh,
who quit the company in January 2012. Aircel officials confirmed the
development.
Gurdeep Singh recently joined Reliance Communications at
the CEO of wireless business division.
Based on revenue, Aircel is the seventh largest telecom operator
in India. During quarter ended 31 March 2012, Aircel revenue increased 6.14
percent to Rs 1,750.94 crore from Rs 1649.61 crore in December quarter ended
2011, according to TRAI data.
During March 2012, Aircel lost 0.68 million customers
during the month and its subscriber base stood at 62.57 million.
Aircel will be investing Rs 7,500 crore to expand its
network in 3G telephony and wireless broadband (BWA) segments. It spent close to Rs
10,000 crore on 3G alone, besides spending about Rs 3,500 crore in acquiring
BWA spectrum.
According to BusinessWeek, Kaizad Bomi Heerjee worked with
U Mobile from July 2010. Heerjee served as the chief commercial officer of
Indosat until April 30, 2010 and served as its president since June 2006 and
its vice president from December 2005 to June 2006.
Heerjee also spent over ten years with Compaq Computers
and Digital Equipment in several senior-level management positions in sales and
marketing, and technical positions across Europe, North America and the
Asia/Pacific region. He is an experienced public speaker and an accomplished
industry writer with several major publications to his name.
editor@telecomlead.com