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]
 Contents

• Brands
o Airtel
o Airtel Sri Lanka
o Touchtel
o BlackBerry
o Digital TV
o iPhone 3G
o Airtel 3G
• Awards and recognition
o In the news
• Subscriber base
• SWOT Analysis
 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.

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, 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:

• Chennai - 2,133,677
• Delhi - 4,671,177
• Mumbai - 2,791,963
• Kolkata - 2,456,896

• Madhya Pradesh - 7,690,609

• Gujarat - 3,981,660
• Andhra Pradesh - 8,892,353
• Karnataka - 9,820,812
• Tamil Nadu - 6,003,040
• Kerala - 2,169,633
• Punjab - 3,754,405
 • Maharashtra - 6,248,906
• Uttar Pradesh (West) - 2,256,862 & (East) - 5,722,386
• Rajasthan - 6,704,274
• West Bengal & Andaman and Nicobar - 3,501,560
• Himachal Pradesh - 951,121
• Bihar - 7,152,245
• Orissa - 2,811,453
• Assam - 1,448,389 & Other North Eastern States - 890,054
• Jammu & Kashmir - 1,590,935

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 .
 SWOT Analysis of Bharti Airtel

SWOT Analysis Bharti Airtel

Strengths
• Bharti Airtel has more than 65 million customers (July 2008). It is the
largest cellular provider in India, and also supplies broadband and
telephone services – as well as many other telecommunications
services to both domestic and corporate
customers.

• Other stakeholders in Bharti Airtel include Sony-Ericsson, Nokia – and

Sing Tel, with whom they hold a strategic alliance. This means that the
business has access to knowledge and technology from other parts of
the telecommunications world.

• The company has covered the entire Indian nation with its network.
This has underpinned its large and rising customer base.

Weaknesses
• An often cited original weakness is that when the business was
started by Sunil Bharti Mittal over 15 years ago, the business has little
knowledge and experience of how a cellular telephone system actually
worked. So the start-up business had to outsource to industry experts
in the field.
• Until recently Airtel did not own its own towers, which was a
particular strength of some of its competitors such as Hutchison Essar.
Towers are important if your company wishes to provide wide coverage
nationally.

• The fact that the Airtel has not pulled off a deal with South Africa’s
MTN could signal the lack of any real emerging market investment
opportunity for the business once the Indian market has become
mature.

Opportunities
• The company possesses a customized version of the Google search
engine which will enhance broadband services to customers. The tie-up
with Google can only enhance the Airtel brand, and also provides
advertising opportunities in Indian for Google.

• Global telecommunications and new technology brands see Airtel as

a key strategic player in the Indian market. The new iPhone will be
launched in India via an Airtel distributorship. Another strategic
partnership is held with BlackBerry Wireless Solutions.

• Despite being forced to outsource much of its technical operations in

the early days, this allowed Airtel to work from its own blank sheet of
paper, and to question industry approaches and practices – for
example replacing the Revenue- Per-Customer model with a Revenue-
Per-Minute model which is better suited to India, as the company
moved into small and remote villages and towns.

• The company is investing in its operation in 120,000 to 160,000

small villages every year. It sees that less well-off consumers may only
be able to afford a few tens of Rupees per call, and also so that the
business benefits are scalable – using its ‘Matchbox’ strategy.

• Bharti Airtel is embarking on another joint venture with Vodafone

Essar and Idea Cellular to create a new independent tower company
called Indus Towers. This new business will control more than 60% of
India’s network towers. IPTV is another potential new service that could
underpin the company’s long-term strategy.

Threats
• Airtel and Vodafone seem to be having an on/off relationship.
Vodafone which owned a 5.6% stake in the Airtel business sold it back
to Airtel, and instead invested in its rival Hutchison Essar. Knowledge
and technology previously available to Airtel now moves into the hands
of one of its competitors.

• The quickly changing pace of the global telecommunications industry

could tempt Airtel to go along the acquisition trail which may make it
vulnerable if the world goes into recession. Perhaps this was an impact
upon the decision not to proceed with talks about the potential
purchase of South Africa’s MTN in May 2008. This opened the door for
talks between Reliance Communication’s Anil Ambani and MTN,
allowing a competing Indian industrialist to invest in the new emerging
African telecommunications market.

• Bharti Airtel could also be the target for the takeover vision of other
global telecommunications players that wish to move into the Indian
market.