India’s GSM phone subscriber base grew 3.4 percent in November with the addition of 17.5 million subscribers taking the total number of subscribers to 526 million, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said Thursday. Telecom giant Bharti Airtel added 3.1 million subscribers to have a total of 149.5 million subscribers. Another telecom operator Vodafone also added 3.1 million subscribers to take its total to 121 million. The state-owned …

Chennai-based commercial vehicle manufacturer Ashok Leyland Limited Thursday announced the commissioning of its Ras Al Khaimah plant set up in a joint venture with Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority (RAKIA). The 2,000 units per annum plant is the first vehicle factory in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – involving an investment of $20 million. The plant will roll out the models made by AVIA Ashok Leyland based in Prague. According to Ashok Leyland’s …

Struggling internet portal Yahoo is to lay off up to five percent of its workers – or up to 700 employees – as it struggles to compete with the likes of Google and Facebook, sources at the company confirmed Tuesday. Most of the layoffs will come from the company’s products division which designs and builds consumer and advertising services such as Yahoo Mail. The move will represent Yahoo’s fourth mass layoff in the past three years, as the web …

On the eve of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India, Shanghai-based telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei Tuesday announced an investment of $2 billion in a new research facility in Bangalore and its manufacturing unit in Chennai. The investment, which will be made over the next five years, will also focus on augmenting the Chinese firm’s capabilities in local sourcing, increasing headcount, while scaling up potential of its research and development …

Leading wireless mobility solution provider O-Zone Networks Tuesday said it plans to open another 40,000 wireless internet zones in the country in the next two-and-a-half years. The company’s chief financial officer, Dharmendra Amin, said these Wi-Fi ‘Hotspots’ in malls, coffee shops and hotels, among other places, will need an investment of $50 million. Currently the company has 1,800 active Wi-Fi zones, while another 4,300 are in various stages …

India’s second largest infotech company Infosys Technologies Monday said it had won the Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) awards in the global, Asian and Indian categories for 2010. “The MAKE selection panel recognised our company for creating a corporate knowledge-driven culture and a learning organization, transforming knowledge into shareholder value,” Infosys vice-president Srikantan Moorthy said in a statement here. The MAKE awards …

Internet giant Google will buy a website that offers its users discount coupons at a staggering price of $5.3 billion, a media report said Wednesday. Andrew Mason will sell Google his Groupon website at $5.3billion (4.1 billion pounds). Mason, 29, set up the business two years ago. He employs around 1,000 people and has 2.5 million users in Britain alone, the Daily Mail reported. The website offers discount vouchers called “Groupons” which give …

A benchmark index of Indian equities Thursday slipped a tad in morning trade after breaching the 20,000-mark soon after opening. The 30-share sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 20,038.66 points, was ruling at 19,969.86 points, up 119.86 points or 0.6 percent from its previous close at 19,850 points. At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the 50-share S&P CNX Nifty was trading at 5,997.8 points, up 0.62 percent. …

Tractor major and storage battery maker TAFE Ltd will invest Rs.1 billion (Rs.100 crore) for increasing the capacity of its valve regulated lead acid (VRLA) battery at its Maraimalainagar plant near here. TAFE Power Source (TPS), the company’s manufacturing division, Wednesday signed a technical collaboration agreement with Chinese company B.B. Battery Co Ltd to product VRLA batteries targeting the growing automotive, telecom, inverter and other …

Toyota Kirloskar Motor launched its Etios sedan here Wednesday, marking the company’s entry into the highly competitive ‘B segment’ or mid-segment car market in India. The Etios, priced between Rs.496,000 and Rs.686,500 (ex-showroom Delhi), has been developed specifically for the Indian customers with the slogan ‘World First, India First, My First’, the company said. The bookings for the Etios sedan started Wednesday and deliveries would begin …