April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Videocon Group, India's largest consumer electronics maker, may offer to buy Motorola Inc.'s mobile-phone operations, Chairman Venugopal Dhoot said.

The group, based in Aurangabad, is in the initial stages of evaluating a bid, Dhoot said in a telephone interview today, declining to comment on financial terms because they haven't been determined yet. Mary Lamb, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Motorola, said she won't comment on speculation.

``We are in consumer durables, we are in retail and we also have'' mobile-phone licenses in India, Dhoot said. Videocon needs a ``cellular phone supplier company so that we can complete the full chain,'' he said.

Motorola's handset business may be worth about $3.8 billion, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. estimates. That's more than double the market value of Videocon Industries Ltd., the group's listed company that failed last year to acquire Daewoo Electronics Corp. after creditors rejected a $711 million offer for the South Korean company.

A Videocon bid would follow Tata Motors Ltd.'s agreement to buy Ford Motor Co.'s Jaguar and Land Rover last month, underscoring the growing ambitions by Indian companies to acquire global brands. Buying Motorola's unprofitable handset business would help Videocon leapfrog Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd. to become the world's third-largest maker of mobile phones.

Videocon Industries shares rose 1.7 percent to 312 rupees at 1:34 p.m. on the Bombay Stock Exchange. They have dropped 62 percent this year.

Motorola Shares

Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Illinois, rose 1 percent to $9.30 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. The stock has fallen 55 percent since the beginning of last year as customers defected to phones from Apple Inc. and Nokia Oyj.

The U.S. company on March 26 said it plans to split into two companies next year amid pressure from billionaire investor Carl Icahn to break off the mobile-phone business that it pioneered 25 years ago. The board is looking for a new chief executive officer for the phone business, Motorola said that day.

Icahn last year began calling for Motorola to dispose off the handset division. Motorola's Razr, introduced in 2004, has lost out to competitors with more features including the iPhone from Apple, Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and Samsung Electronics Co.'s BlackJack.

Daewoo Electronics

Creditors of Daewoo Electronics, South Korea's third- largest maker of home appliances, rejected a 700 billion won offer from Videocon and bidding partner RHJ International in January 2007. In February this year, a Morgan Stanley private equity fund won exclusive negotiating rights to bid for Daewoo.

Videocon's acquisitions in the past three years have included Thomson SA's television glass-tube business and Electrolux AB's Indian appliance operations.

The Indian company, which began operations in 1979 and started making color TVs in 1987, uses actor Shah Rukh Khan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India's one-day cricket captain, in commercials that aim to depict Videocon as an ``Indian multinational.'' It competes with domestic, Japanese and Korean companies selling kitchen appliances and consumer electronics in India.

Videocon accounts for 23 percent of India's market for consumer electronics such as televisions, refrigerators and air conditioners, according to Anant Panshikar, Videocon's head of corporate communications.

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