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Bharti Airtel

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For the information technology, see Airtel (FBI).
For the spanish company, see Vodafone España.
Bharti Airtel
Company typePublic, BSE: 532454
IndustryTelecommunications
Founded1985 by Sunil Mittal
HeadquartersNew Delhi, India
Key people
Sunil Mittal
(Chairman) & (CEO)
ProductsWireless
Telephone
Internet
Satellite Television
Revenue$7.26 Billion
$1.66Billion
WebsiteBharti Group
Airtel

The businesses at Bharti Airtel has always been structured into three individual strategic business units (SBU’s) - Mobile Services, Airtel Telemedia Services & Enterprise Services. The mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom circles while the Airtel Telemedia Services business offers broadband & telephone services in 95 cities and has recently launched a Direct-to-Home (DTH) service, Airtel digital TV. The company provides end-to-end data and enterprise services to the corporate customers through its nationwide fiber optic backbone, last mile connectivity in fixed-line and mobile circles, VSATs, ISP and international bandwidth access through the gateways and landing station. [1]

Globally, Bharti Airtel is the 3rd largest in-country mobile operator by subscriber base, behind China Mobile and China Unicom. In India, the company has a 24.6% share of the wireless services market, followed by 17.7% for Reliance Communications and 17.4% for Vodafone Essar.[2]

Brands

Airtel

Airtel is a brand of telecommunication services in India and Sri Lanka owned and operated by Bharti Airtel. It is the largest cellular service provider in India in terms of number of subscribers. Services are offered under the brand name Airtel: Mobile Services (using GSM Technology), Broadband & Telephone Services (Fixed line, Internet Connectivity(DSL) and Leased Line), Long Distance Services and Enterprise Services (Telecommunications Consulting for corporates). It has presence in all 23 circles of the country and covers 71% of the current population (as of Financial Year 2007).

Airtel Sri Lanka

In December 2008, Bharti Airtel rolled out third generation services in Sri Lanka in association with Singtel. SingTel, is a major player in the 3G space in Asia. It operates third generation networks in several markets across Asia. It had been largely criticised in recent times on its inability to start operation even two years after its certification and proposed date of launch. [3]

Airtel's operation in Sri Lanka, known as Airtel Lanka, commenced operations on the 12th of January 2009.

Airtel has also launched 16Mb/s broadband plans in India, making it the first ISP to do so.

Touchtel

Until September 18 2004, Bharti provided fixed-line telephony and broadband services under the Touchtel brand. Bharti now provides all telecom services including fixed-line services under a common brand "Airtel"

BlackBerry

On 19 October 2004 Airtel announced the launch of a BlackBerry Wireless Solution in India. The launch is a result of a tie-up between Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited and Research In Motion (RIM).

Digital TV

Main article: Airtel Digital Tv

On 9 October 2008, Airtel joined the DTH bandwagon in India with Airtel Digital TV, a Direct-to-Home Television service.

iPhone 3G

The Apple iPhone 3G rolled out in Indian Market on 22nd August 2008 via Airtel & Vodafone. Airtel & Vodafone are planning to launch the newly released Iphone 3GS (16GB & 32GB) in August 2009 in India. Due to the high retail price of INR 32,000 (8GB) and INR 37,000 (16GB), and unavailability of 3G services, iPhone 3G has not seen success in India despite the sky-touching craze among youngsters.

Airtel 3G

Airtel plans to roll out 3G services in India in the next 6 months. Airtel's 3G speed is rumoured to be around 400Kb/s. The main reason to roll out 3G is the competition from BSNL rolling out 3G in India. The other main reason being to promote the iPhone which, otherwise, has not yet seen success in India.

Awards and recognition


In the news

On February 12, 2007 Vodafone sold its 5.6% stake in AirTel back to AirTel for US $1.6 billion; and purchased a controlling stake in rival Hutchison Essar.

In its monthly press release[citation needed], following statistics have been presented for end of April 2007.

  • Bharti Airtel added the highest ever net addition of 5.3 million customers in a single quarter (Q4-FY0607) and also the highest ever net addition of 18 million total subscribers in 2006-07
  • The company will invest up to $3.5 billion this fiscal (07-08) in network expansion.
  • It has an installed base of 40,000 cellsites and 59% population coverage
  • After the proposed network expansion, an additional 30,000 towers will result in the company achieving 70% population coverage
  • Bharti has over 39 million users as on March 31, 2007
  • It has set a target of 125 million subscribers by 2010
  • Prepaid customers account for 88.5% of Bharti’s total subscriber base, an increase from 82.7% a year ago
  • ARPU has dropped to Rs 406
  • Non-voice revenues, (SMS, voice mail, call management, hello tunes and Airtel Live) constituted 10% of total revenues during Q4, lower than 10.7% in the Q4 of the previous year
  • Blended monthly minutes of usage per customer in Q4 was at 475 minutes
  • Has completed 100% verification of its subscribers and in the process disconnected three lakh (300,000) subscribers
  • Bharti Airtel’s is now connecting India to Europe under its Europe India gateway [EIG]project. The company is building 15,000 km 3.84 Terrabit OFC sub-marine cable system connecting Europe [London] to India via the Middle East. The project is expected to cost $700 million, which is to be completed by Q2-2010. Alcatel Lucent and Tyco are the telecom vendors for the project.

Members in the EIG consortium include - AT&T, BT, C&W, Djibouti Telecom, Du, Gibtelecom, IAM, Libyan Telecom, MTN Group Ltd., Omantel, PT Comunicacoes-S.A, Saudi Telecom Company, Telecom Egypt, Telkom SA Ltd, and Verizon Business.

In May 2008, it emerged that Bharti Airtel was exploring the possibility of buying the MTN Group, a South Africa-based telecommunications company with coverage in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. The Financial Times reported that Bharti was considering offering US$45 billion for a 100% stake in MTN, which would be the largest overseas acquisition ever by an Indian firm. However, both sides emphasize the tentative nature of the talks, while The Economist magazine noted, "If anything, Bharti would be marrying up," as MTN has more subscribers, higher revenues and broader geographic coverage.[4] However, the talks fell apart as MTN group tried to reverse the negotiations by making Bharti almost a subsidiary of the new company [5]

In May 2009, Bharti Airtel again confirmed that it is in Talks with MTN and companies have now agreed discuss the potential transaction exclusively by July 31 ,2009[6]. Bharti Airtel said in a statement [“Bharti Airtel Ltd is pleased to announce that it has renewed its effort for a significant partnership with MTN Group"][2]

Subscriber base

The Airtel subscriber base according to TRAI - Telecom Regulatory Authority of India as of February 2009[7] was:

The total is 101,114,971 or 24.2% of the total 375,742,592 GSM + CDMA mobile connections in India till February 2009; and presently the Number 1 operator in India. In 2009 Airtel also launched in Sri Lanka.

On the 9th of May,2009 Airtel signed a major deal with Manchester United Football Club . As a result of the deal, Airtel gets the rights to broadcast the matches played by the team to its customers .

See also

References

  1. ^ http://home.singtel.com/about_singtel/global_presence/overseas_investments/overseas_investments.asp
  2. ^ Bharti Airtel (BOM:532454), Wikinvest
  3. ^ "AirTel to use SingTel expertise for 3G services rollout in Sri Lanka".
  4. ^ "Emerging-market telecoms: Eyes on Africa", [[The Economist]], 6 May 2008
  5. ^ "$50 Billion Telecom Deal Falls Apart", The New York Times, 25 May 2008
  6. ^ [[[[topUpGuru.com(May)]Bharti Renews MTN Talks]]]
  7. ^ [1]

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