ICAHN PRESSES APPLE OVER SHARE BUYBACK

NEW YORK: Carl Icahn, America’s most powerful activist investor, has warned Apple’s board he is “not going away” after meeting the iphone maker’s chief executive.

Icahn is pushing for Apple to spend $150 billion lifting its stock price by buying back its own shares, and invited Tim Cook to dinner at his apartmentin New York on Monday (September 30) to discuss the plan.

“We had dinner at my apartment with a bunch of CEOS,” said the investor in an interview on Tuesday. “We had a commonality, we know the technologyworld ... but the conversation revolved around the buyback, we pushed quite hard for it.”

The $150 billion would be more than twice as much again as the company has committed to spend on a share buyback. The conversation had become “a little bit testy” when the subject was raised, Icahn told the CNBC network.

“I can promise you I’m not going away before they hear a lot more from me concerning this,” he said.

Airtel’s R1 download package is applicable for both 3G and 2G subscribers. 2G subscribers use GPRS for video downloads.

Vodafone also reported 42.2 million users of data services as on June 30, 2013, constituting 26.6% of its total subscriber base. Its smartphone user penetration grew to 9% of the total subscriber base in June 2013, a 95% increase compared to June 2012. “This is mainly due to reduction in tariff by up to 80%,”a Vodafone spokesperson said.

Experts feel incumbent operators have to be prepared for the proposed launch of Reliance Jio’s 4G services. “If existing telcos have to compete with Rel Jio on data services, it is necessary for incumbent operators to reduce their tariffs so that existing subscribers are hooked onto them,” said BK Syngal, former chairman and managing director, VSNL.