Bharti enters Karnataka, looking for more acquisitions

BANGALORE: After four months of taking over JTM, Bharti Mobile has launched its cellular service in Karnataka under the brand name `AirTel'. Speaking at the launch, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Group Managing Director, Bharti Enterprises said, "The launch of AirTel is significant move for Bharti. With this launch in Karnataka, we are coming to south. Shortly, we will be launching our services in Andhra Pradesh and in Chennai".

Commenting about the services, he said "AirTel has opened a 24 hours customer care center in Bangalore and we have upgraded the switching center. Through this, the total installed capacity has gone up to 1,50,000 from current capacity of 75,000 and will further be expanded to 2,00,000 in this financial year." Further he added, " The expansion of capacity will be matched by a huge expansion of coverage with AirTel cell sites. The net work will be greatly strengthened with addition of new cell sites in Managlore, Bangalore and Mysore. In all, the total number of cell sites would go up from 59 today to 79 by the end of month to 131 sites by July 2000".

The company has so far invested Rs 400 crore in the acquisition of a majority stake in JTM. Over and above this, AirTel has invested Rs 200 crore for upgradation of existing switches and addition of fresh capacities, laying of optic fiber backbone and for value added services. By the end of May 2000, AirTel will commence its operations in Hubli-Dharwad, Shimoga, Belgaum, Davanagere, Gulbarga, Udupi, and Manipal. AirTel has 74 percent stake in JTM and remaining 26 per cent is with Telecom Italia.

As part of the value added services, AirTel has introduced SmartNet, a short message service facility offered for the first time in Karnataka wherein a customer can send a message of 160 characters to any roaming mobile in the world. With this, customers can get the information about news, stock updates, jokes etc and send e-mail from the mobile to any e-mail ID. SmartNet also enables mobile banking and e-mail from PC to mobile. In this, customer can get the status of his bank balance on his mobile.

Currently the company has a subscriber base of 50,000 in Karnataka and 40,000 in Andhra Pradesh. AirTel expects to cross 1,00,000 subscriber in this month (including both the states). The company plans to have an all-India subscriber base of one million by March 2001. "With the existing reach, we can touch 80 lakh base. If we are able to acquire one or two more companies, we can achieve the one million target by March 2001," said Mr Mittal.

Speaking about ADR plans that the company has, the Bharti group chief said, " It is sure that one of our group company will go for public. Still we have not decided upon the exchanges it may be Nasdaq or NewYork Stock Exchange." He, however, added that Bharti Televenture was the most likely company to go for an overseas listing.