India's Tata Teleservices reportedly plans to meld its GSM and CDMA operations in a restructuring, and expects resulting job cuts amounting to some 15% of its staff.
Tata Teleservices will combine its CDMA brand Tata Indicom with Tata DoCoMo, the company's 74%-owned joint venture with NTT DoCoMo, Economic Timessaid.
A company official told the news outlet that the CDMA employees will be hardest-hit by the anticipated 15% headcount reduction that will result.
An internal document outlining the plan mentions combined GSM and CDMA operations encompassing the entire country, with management divided under four regional heads and 15 business units.
Tata Teleservices, the telecom division of Indian conglomerate Tata Group, is the nation's sixth largest operator with around 93 million subscribers.
News of the streamlining comes weeks after Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile operator by subscribers, outlined plans to restructure its own Indian operations into consumer- and business-facing units.
Bharti, too, expects its restructuring to have an affect on jobs, but has not revealed how many positions will be cut.
Analysts expect more operators to follow the early movers' lead and streamline their own structures as they struggle with low margins due to cut-throat competition.
Last week, telecom minister Kapil Sibal warned in an interview that rivalry and one-upsmanship threaten to destroy the nation's mobile sector.