Telecom Lead India: Bharti Airtel CMD Sunil Mittal has seen several ups and downs in the last 18 years, ever since Bharti Cellular was incorporated in 1995, one-year after the 1994 National Telecom Policy.
During Sunil Mittal’s journey — to become the largest telecom player in India with wireless operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa with third quarter (2012-2013) revenue of Rs 20,239 crore and profit of Rs 284 crore — several telecom entrepreneurs like Rajeev Chandrasekhar of BPL gave way and several mobile businesses flourished in India.
On April 8, 2013, one year after Bharti Airtel launched revolutionary 4G / LTE services in India, India’s Supreme Court will hear a plea of Sunil Mittal against his summonsing as an accused in a corruption case related to allocation of additional 2G spectrum in 2002.
The case is significant for the telecom czar since any verdict from the apex court will set the tone for the entire corporate world. Sunil Mittal is one of the few well established CEOs in India to face such issues.
The 2G related court hearing is important for the telecom industry as the outcome of the case can bring more transparency in the daily operations of any mobile operator and how the telecom business is done in India, the second largest telecom market in the world — based on subscriber base.
Also, it will be an eye opener for other accused people in the 2G case.
The struggling telecom industry is facing several issues — wrong accounting practices, 3G roaming, approval to run voice services to BWA operators, etc. due to lack of adequate guidelines. Proper and strict guidelines from the government and lack of aggression to make quick bucks — even by reducing quality of services — by wireless operators will assist Indian telecom operators to stay in the business with profits.
Airtel’s Sunil Mittal has already clarified that the corporate has not done anything illegal against telecom guidelines in India.
TelecomLead.com is trying to take a re-look at main achievements of Bharti Airtel in the past 18 years.
July 7, 1995: Date of Incorporation.
1997: British Telecom acquired 21.05 percent stake in Bharti Cellular.
June 4, 1998: launched first Indian private fixed-line services in Indore in the Madhya Pradesh circle ending fixed-line services monopoly of DoT (now BSNL).
April 9, 2001: Bharti Enterprises posted a topline growth of 64 percent in fiscal 2000-01 with a total group sales turnover of Rs 13140 million as against Rs 7970 million in the corresponding fiscal.
The company’s growth was fuelled by a 107 percent growth in manufacturing revenues and a 61 percent growth in services. The service companies more than doubled their subscriber base, recording a growth of 115 percent.
October 1, 2001: crossed the 1 million customer mark across their mobile operations.
February 18, 2002: Became a public limited company in India.
March 4, 2002: Sheila Dikshit, chief minister of Delhi, launched Delhi’s first private telephone service – Touchtel.
March 30, 2005: First telecom company to have an all India mobile footprint.
September 2, 2005: Airtel Broadband & Telephone Services, India’s largest broadband service provider and the country’s largest private telephone service from Bharti Tele-Ventures, crossed the one million-customer landmark.
July 23, 2006: achieve the first 25 million users.
May 23, 2007: crossed the 40 million-mobile customer milestone. With this, Bharti Airtel becomes the first Indian mobile services provider and the 10th in the world to join an exclusive list of global telecom operators with more than 40 million customers from a single-country. This remarkable achievement is highlighted by the fact that it took Airtel 11 years to reach the 20 million customer landmark and just another 13 months to add the next 20 million customers.
October 1, 2007: crossed the 50 million customer mark.
August 2008: crossed 75 million customers.
May 15, 2009: crossed the 100 million customers mark.
March 18, 2010: clocked 2.5 million plus downloads within 30 days of the launch of Airtel App Central – India’s first mobile application store.
March 30, 2010: entered into an agreement with Zain Group to acquire Zain Africa based on an enterprise valuation of $10.7 billion.
November 18, 2010: unveiled a new identity – a shared worldwide vision across its operations in 19 countries in Asia and Africa. airtel also announced that it has crossed the significant milestone of 200 million customers.
January 24, 2011: launched 3G service in India.
March 3, 2011: achieved around half a million 3G customers having launched a little over a month ago.
April 10, 2012: Airtel launched TD LTE / 4G services in Kolkata.
2013: Airtel expands 4G / LTE
