Virgin will reveal plans for a mobile venture in India in two or three months, says CEO Richard Branson. Branson claims the British company has found an Indian partner to carry out its plans which will cover branding, marketing and sales in the country of more than 200m mobile subscribers. Although he would not name the partner, it has previously been reported that Virgin was in talks with Tata Telecommunications over a possible mobile venture. Branson would not comment on whether Vodafone plans to bid for a 3G mobile licence, or on whether the deal would be linked to its existing mobile retail joint venture with Essar.

Branson recently criticised India for being a closely protected market, referring to its law that limits foreign ownership in the telecoms sector to 74%, meaning that foreign firms need to find a partner to enter the market. Virgin has reportedly been interested in obtaining a MNVO licence in India, but India does not allow MVNO operations. The carrier may now be planning to bid for India's upcoming auction of three new 3G mobile licences, although local reports have suggested that the auction may not be held.

India is expected to have 500m mobile customers by 2010 and has received 575 applications for mobile services from 46 domestic and foreign firms. Deutsche Telekom, Verizon NTT DoCoMo are believed to be eyeing a share in its market while AT&T, Vodafone, SingTel and Sistema are among those already operating there.