Japan's NTT DoCoMo may have decided to pull out of the Indian market after all, which would involve selling its entire stake in its Tata Teleservices joint venture.
Both The Nikkei are reporting that DoCoMo is planning to offload its entire stake in the joint venture with Tata Group.
The Nikkei claims DoCoMo plans to exercise its option to have Tata Group buy back the stake, while the Reuters report states that DoCoMo will make a formal decision to divest the stake today.
But on the record, a DoCoMo spokesperson told Reuters that nothing had yet been decided regarding the stake and that the company is considering various options for its overseas operations.
The articles conflict with earlier rumors that DoCoMo had decided to hang onto the Tata Teleservices stake for at least another year, to help give the joint venture time to turn around.
Tata Teleservices has around a 7% share of India's mobile market, and has been struggling with hefty debt and unprofitability.