No plan to acquire Vodafone Idea, says Verizon exec

CHENNAI: Amid reports that US telecom giant Verizon is among top suitors to acquire cash-strapped Vodafone Idea, a global Verizon official denied such plans on Tuesday.

“We are not buying Vodafone, definitely not…It’s not a question of regulatory [climate] but of opportunity. If the US wasn’t big enough or wasn’t growing, we would have looked [at India]. There is opportunity for us [consumer division] to grow further in the US and thus we are staying focused and doubling down capital committments there,” Sowmyanarayan Sampath, CEO, Verizon Consumer Group, said in a media interaction here.