Bharti Airtel on Friday said that it was open to acquiring domestic telecom operators as part of its strategy to add another 100 million subscribers in three years. The company, which today touched the 100-million mark, is hoping to double its subscriber base.
“There will be consolidation in India. If there are opportunities in the domestic market, we are aligned. The value for us is not brand, but financials,” said Mr Sunil Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Group. There are at least five new mobile operators starting their services and some of them which are struggling with their roll-out plans could be a possible acquisition target for Bharti.
Mr Mittal added that he is looking for more clarity in the local merger-and-acquisition rules. There is a proposal to ban promoters of new companies to sell their equity before 3 years of operations.
The company had crossed the 75-million mark in August 2008 and 50 million in October 2007, making it one of the fastest growing telcos in the world. The first 25 million was achieved in July 2006.
Bharti Airtel also announced a series of network augmentation and customer service initiatives.
Network front
On the network front, Airtel will roll out one lakh base stations by this year-end to set up wider and deeper network coverage across the country.
Around 60 per cent of Airtel’s customer additions come from rural areas. For the rural customers, Airtel has already set up 14,000 Airtel Service Centres and going forward the company is looking at having over one lakh such centres across the country by March 2010.
Source: The Hindu Businessline