Bharti Airtel crosses the 50 million customer mark

Airtel, who recently received approval to launch 2G and 3G mobile services in Sri Lanka, plans to launch local operations early next year. With just 30% mobile penetration and witnessing a steady growth of approx. 2 million mobile users per annum, Bharti Airtel sees Sri Lanka as a strategic market in its overseas expansion journey and has made an estimated investment of US$ 200 Million in the Sri Lankan market.

Bharti Airtel, India’s leading telecommunication services provider, last week announced that it had crossed the 50 million customer mark thereby achieving many firsts.

With this, Bharti Airtel has achieved the distinction of becoming the fastest private telecom company in world to achieve this landmark in a single country - within 143 months of start of operations. The 50 million customer base covers mobile as well as broadband and telephone customers.

Commenting on this major global landmark, Mr. Akhil Gupta, Joint Managing Director, Bharti Airtel said, “We are delighted to have achieved this major landmark, which puts Bharti Airtel amongst the top telecom companies in the world. It underlines the strength of our unique business model and our vision to provide affordable services like lifetime prepaid to customers across the length and breadth of the country. I would like to thank our partners for having shared our vision. This milestone highlights the emergence of India as one of the top telecom markets in the world and we are proud to have been at the forefront of this growth. Going forward, we believe this growth momentum will remain intact and we are gearing towards the 100 million customers mark.”

Bharti Airtel crossed the 10 million customer mark in November 2004. In July last year, it crossed the 25 million customer mark. The company added the next 25 million customers in just 14 months. This is amongst the fastest rate of customer additions by any telecom company in the world.

Bharti Airtel President & CEO Manoj Kohli said: “This is a very proud moment for us and I would like to thank our 50 million customers for believing in Airtel. It is a tribute to our commitment to provide best-in-class services to our customers and lead the market with exciting innovations. We are committed to create a world-class organization and benchmark it with the best in the world. As the market gets ready for the next wave of growth, we are committed to expanding our telecom networks wider and deeper across the country and partner India’s growth story.”

Airtel, who recently received approval to launch 2G and 3G mobile services in Sri Lanka, plans to launch local operations early next year. With just 30% mobile penetration and witnessing a steady growth of approx. 2 million mobile users per annum, Bharti Airtel sees Sri Lanka as a strategic market in its overseas expansion journey and has made an estimated investment of US$ 200 Million in the Sri Lankan market.

In the mobile business, Bharti Airtel plans to make considerable investments in Network expansion to establish presence in all census towns and over 500,000 villages across India by 2010, thereby covering 95% of the country’s total population.

The company’s strategic focus will be on further strengthening the Airtel brand through best-in-class customer service, which is backed by wide national distribution.
In the Enterprise business, Bharti Airtel will invest substantially in the long distance business to achieve the scale of a global carrier within next 2-3 years. It is also strengthening the corporate business towards becoming a preferred managed services partner for the top 2000 corporations. In Broadband & Telephone SBU, Bharti Airtel will initiate large-scale deployments of broadband network infrastructure in 94 towns, with a sharp focus on the home and SME segments. It is readying to offer triple play to its customers with the launch of its IPTV service. The company is also looking at commencing national DTH operations by the end of the current fiscal.