Bharti follows bold strategy for growth - Company Business and Marketing

India's first private operator to make cellular profits has an aggressive strategy in all areas of fixed and wireless telecoms.
Indian telecoms company Bharti Enterprises is undertaking a bold expansion through a series of acquisitions, new network build and forays into the international arena. In so doing the New Delhi-based company is aiming to become a force to compete with the government-run Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL).
"We would like to become a customer-driven one-stop-shop for a range of telecoms services, including fixed-line networks, mobile, Internet access [and] VSATs [very small aperture terminals]," said group chairman and managing director, Sunil Mittal.
Bharti started out in the Indian telecoms market offering cellular phone services in Delhi in 1992. Its mobile division, Bharti Cellular, is the first private operator to make operational profits in the capital intensive mobile phone business in India, making a net profit of around 165.8 million rupees (US$3.8 million) in the last financial year (1998-99), and its Airtel brand, operating in Delhi and the state of Himachal Pradesh, now has more than 175,000 customers.
"For most of India's private operators, telecoms is one of their many business interests, but for Bharti it is the only one," said Mahesh Uppal, a New Delhi-based independent telecoms consultant.
This focused approach and some aggressive marketing have helped it grow its user base, According to Mittal the company is adding "about 10,000 cellphone subscribers per month in Delhi."

POSTED BY:-
SHWETA RANI
PGDM-3rd sem