Bharti accelerating

Posted on | March 7, 2006 |

Akhil Gupta of Bharti says the company is eyeing opportunities to acquire mobile operators in the Indian subcontinent, such as in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

I think its high time Indian operators start thinking big beyond our borders. They have been too busy capturing the Indian market and bringing in funds for growth by offloading stake to foriegn partners. There is no reason why Indian operators should not be having global aspirations, especially for the developing world. The core expertise of Indian operators is their ability to run profitable telecom operations on low tariffs with huge scales. They will be tough competitors if they are able replicate this model in other emerging markets.

Akhil is more bullish than the bulls about the growth of Indian mobile market.

“If you take a five-year view, by the turn of this decade, most analysts believe India would have 250-300 million mobile customers. My feeling is that there is potential for it to be significantly higher than that — no surprise to us if there were more than 350 million (users) by 2010.”

In January, Bharti said it was targeting more than US$1.5 billion in capital spending for fiscal year 2007.

“If you ask me, I would be happier spending closer to $2 billion so this growth can be captured much quicker,” he added.

Bharti saw its mobile user base leap from a year ago by 66% to 16.33 million users as of Dec ‘05. It expects to cover all of India’s 5,200 census towns by fiscal year to March 2007, up from 3,200 today. In January, Bharti posted a lower-than-expected 25% rise in net profit to 5.45 billion rupees ($123 million) in the three months to December, its fiscal third quarter, as low-priced products eroded its average revenue per user (ARPU) levels.

Source: Reuters

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