Airtel buys Telenor: Norwegian co's foray was jinxed from get-go

About six months ago, Reliance Industries-promoted Jio changed the rules of the game in India's crowded but stable telecom space, by offering free services.For Telenor India however, the struggle for survival begun much earlier. A late entrant into India's crowded telcom sector, Telenor (formerly Uninor) never really found its footing in an industry with a long running price war. So, it is not surprising that Telenor is selling its India operations to Bharti Airtel.Entering India in the aftermath of the 2007-2008's economic meltdown, the company - which was a joint venture between Unitech Wireless of India and Telenor - decided to penetrate the Indian market with the cheapest voice calls, promoting them with the tagline: Sabse Sasta Tariffs.    It also offered India's first dynamic pricing, which gave some cash back to the users based on the traffic on the network when they made calls.In little more than two years time, in 2012, the company crossed 40 million users on its network. However, this was the peak for the company.In February 2012, the Supreme Court cancelled all of Uninor's licenses following the 2008 2G allocation spectrum scandal. Uninor was forced to bid for new spectrum to continue seamless operations and services in its existing circles. But till it could win fresh spectrum, it had to be discontinued.The telco was also forced to shut its services in various circles including metrocities like Kolkata and Mumbai. Uninor was able to give prior notice to users in Kolkata. But due to no prior warning on the Mumbai's shut down, more than 1.8 million subscribers (and Uninor's Mumbai employees), were left in the lurch.Meanwhile, following investigations into the 2G case, Unitech and Telenor began having differences of opinions. When they finally decided to part ways, Telenor decided to buy out the assets of Uninor. It tied up with Lakshdeep Investments and Finance, creating a new entity named Telewings Communications. Telewings soon secured fresh spectrum and helped grow its customer base in the best performing regions likes Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar.Unfortunately, the company was never able to build on that.After it was officially rebranded to Telenor in September 2015, the company continued to perform poorly in India, with profits only heading towards gravity.In the year 2016, the company's losses widened to a bruising Rs 5,856 crore from Rs 871.2 crore the year before.The Norwegian telco's CEO, Sigve Brekke, during a recent investor meet, had talked about the group's unwillingness to continue its India business due to mounting losses. "In India business is not sustainable. We are looking for an alternative which we are yet to find," he had told investors.Bharti Airtel acquiring Telenor further intensifies the consolidation in the telecom sector, following the Idea Cellular-Vodafone India merger talks and an Aircel-MTS-Rel Comm(with Tata Teleservices still in talks to be a part of it) merger.Airtel will benefit greatly from this deal, adding 52.5 million users from Telenor to its existing 269.4 subscribers.