Japan's NTT DoCoMo to buy up to 26 percent stake in Tata Teleservices

Company sources said DoCoMo was in talks with Tata Teleservices since September.

According to a DoCoMo spokesman, the Japanese company will send one of its executives to sit on the Tata board.

The deal comes at a time when top Indian mobile operators are vying to acquire rights for operating high-speed 3G services. Tata Teleservices, an affiliate of the $66 billion Tata Group, is India's sixth largest mobile services provider with around 30 million subscribers, after Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone-Essar, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Idea Cellular. Of these, only Reliance Communications operate on the CDMA-based network.

According to Shinji Moriyuki, a telecoms analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities, DoCoMo's latest acquisition would be positive for the company, especially with its extensive knowledge of 3G network services to which many developing countries are now moving.

The acquisition, Moriyuki said, will give DoCoMo a foothold in India, the world's fastest growing market for mobile phone services and the second-largest market for such services after China, and the purchase will help DoCoMo, which is seeking to expand its overseas operations to offset slowing growth in Japan, improve its revenues.

"The company has shifted to developing countries with room for further growth. It's a good strategy," Moriyuki said.