Bharti sees strong subscriber growth

Jennifer Tan

SINGAPORE: Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd., India's top mobile phone service provider, said on Monday it achieved its target of one million fixed-line customers this month and expected new subscriber growth to remain strong.

An early entrant in India's wireless market, Bharti is enjoying booming demand in a country where only six in 100 people use mobile phones, compared with more than 25 percent in China and about 90 percent in Singapore.

Earlier this month, Bharti said it hoped to add 1 million new fixed-line subscribers, but did not specify a time frame.

"We achieved the 1 million subscribers in fixed-line. We completed it in September," Joint Managing Director Rajan Mittal told Reuters in an interview.

He declined to forecast how much this figure would grow by, but said growth in net mobile phone subscriber additions would stay strong.

The company was also on track to invest a targeted 15 billion rupees in fixed-line infrastructure in its 2005-2006 fiscal year, Mittal said.

In August, the company added 624,209 new GSM service users, its highest ever monthly addition, bringing its mobile user base to 13.413 million.

"Over the past few months, we have been adding a certain number of percentage points, and we're fairly satisfied with that performance," Mittal added.

"We are partaking in the growth which is happening. We are also adding our share as the market grows."

The Indian market is adding some 2.5 million new wireless users a month, thanks to the lowest call rates in the world.

Bharti, India's top-ranked telecoms stock with a market value of about $14.4 billion, holds more than a fifth of the domestic wireless market that is forecast to top 80 million users by middle of next year.

The firm competes mainly with rivals like Code Division Multiple Access-technology operator Reliance Infocomm Ltd., state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. and the Indian mobile operations of Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa group.

In July, Bharti posted a 72 percent surge in consolidated profit to 5.1 billion rupees ($117 million) as per U.S. accounting standards in the April-to-June quarter.

This compares with 2.96 billion rupees a year earlier, according to international financial reporting standards.

NO PLANS FOR SINGTEL TO INCREASE STAKE

New Delhi-based Bharti is 30.84 percent-owned by SingTel, Asia's fifth-largest phone company.

Mittal said there were no ongoing talks with Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. for the latter to raise its stake in the firm.

"SingTel has been a stable partner. We have a good relationship with them. There is nothing on the agenda. I do not think there is any room for them (to raise their stake), the company does not need any funds. There're no discussions," he added.

In the past months, SingTel has spent about $252 million to raise its stake in unlisted Bharti Telecom, to tap India's fast-growing wireless market. Bharti Telecom owns 45.9 percent of Bharti Tele-Ventures.

Facing a mature home market, where over nine in 10 people own a cellphone, SingTel has spent S$17 billion ($10 billion) in recent years buying operators in high-growth Asian nations with fewer cellphone users, and in the bigger Australian market.

SingTel owns major stakes in four other operators -- Thailand's Advanced Info Service Plc., Globe Telecom Inc. in the Philippines, Indonesia's PT Telkomsel and Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Ltd.