Airtel hits a subscriber base of 50 mn
Airtel hits a subscriber base of 50 mn
Bharti Airtel has become the first Indian telecom company to hit a subscriber base of over 50 million till the end of September, making it the tenth largest wireless telecom operator in the world, reports Business Standard. Bharti Airtel president and CEO Manoj Kohli said that the company intends to reach 5,200 census towns and over five lakh villages, covering 96% of the Indian population. Bharti Airtel has achieved the 50 million mark in 143 months since its launch. The company is also planning to expand other businesses to global size. These include the broadband business that has over two million customers. It is also expanding its national long distance coverage, adding another 20,000 kilometres of optic fibre this year (it already has 50,000 kilometres). In the international long distance segment, Bharti Airtel already owns two submarine cables and is in talks to take a stake in some others. Akhil Gupta, joint managing director, said, Bharti Airtel planned to go global, checking out whether its model would work elsewhere. It already has presence in Seychelles and the Channel Islands and will soon start telecom services in Sri Lanka.
>Bharti has registered half of these customers in only 14 months and it aims to get to the 100 million subscriber mark before 2010. Bharti Airtel wants to become one of the top-five wireless companies in the world. India`s top mobile services firm also planned to launch a direct-to-home television service by the end of this financial year. It will also offer IPTV services by the end of this year.
Shares of the company gained Rs 13.8, or 1.46%, to trade at Rs 956.1. The total volume of shares traded was 156,573 at the BSE. (1.25 p.m, Wedne sday)
