British mobile phone company Vodafone Group PLC. will start using its brand name in India later this week in place of a leading Indian cellular carrier it acquired five months ago, AP quoted a company statement as saying today. The announcement came as the company completed the acquisition of a 52 percent controlling stake in Hutchison Essar Ltd., a joint venture company between Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. and India's Essar Group. Vodafone bought the stake held by Hutchison. It will stop using the Hutch brand name from Friday, a company statement said The brand change is one of the biggest in the country, covering nearly 35 million customers and 400,000 shops across India, it said. Vodafone paid nearly US$11 billion (¤7.87 billion) to Hutchison Telecommunications for the acquisition, the biggest-ever corporate takeover in India.
