Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

T here is surely a lot about Bharti that makes it the face of India´s telecom revolution, post deregulation. In many ways the success of India´s only truly telecom focused group reflects the success and the failures of telecom deregulation.

Certainly a lot of the credit for Bharti´s success goes to Sunil Bharti Mittal. His focused strategy, improved execution, and partnership with global leaders has helped the group reach its current position. Today, Bharti is number one in cellular services with about 22 percent market share, in revenue terms. The group has been aggressively pursuing its fixed voice access business where it has emerged as the largest private operator. It has also built some lead in the nascent broadband market.

Bharti continued its penchant for becoming first in new things. This time around, it became the first private telecom company in the country to own an undersea cable. The 3,200–km i2i cable network freed India from bandwidth dependency on foreign firms. In its second cable venture, Bharti will invest $40 million in the $500 million SEA-ME-WE-4 project, to be completed by 2005. Bharti has been giving VSNL, which had a monopoly in international gateway and bandwidth, a run for its money with its cable plans. The group also scored another first this financial year when Bharti Tele-Ventures became the first Indian telecom company to issue foreign currency convertible bonds $100 million with an option to retain over-subscription to the extent of 15 percent.

The group also has a significant presence in telecom manufacturing. Group company Bharti Teletech hit a new high with almost 50 percent share of the Indian fixed handsets market in FY 2003–04. The company exported five lakh units and has set the target at one million phones for the current financial year. This year, the manufacturing arm entered the modem market. The company has tied up with Korea Telecom Networks to make DSL modems. Though the 17,000 modems were made in Korea and imported primarily for Bharti Infotel, the company has plans of a manufacturing setup in India. Also, despite a slowdown in fixed phone subscribers, Bharti is banking on a booming retail market for phones. It tied up with Atlinks to make phones at its Ludhiana plant. The company will also have marketing rights for GE phones in India and nearby countries.

The company also plans to buy out other mobile operators to increase its network footprint. It has also applied for additional telecom licenses. This year, the company also unveiled its strategy to outsource network and IT management to third-party vendors like IBM, Ericsson, and Nokia. The outsourcing will allow Bharti to concentrate on its core areas of operations and services.

With its mobile business in Seychelles facing no major competition and the software business under Bharti Telesoft concentrating on telecom software for developing countries, the group´s focus has been completely on Bharti Tele-Ventures in India.

Bharti knows that the path ahead is not easy. Already, BSNL and MTNL are planning for a comeback in GSM and CDMA. Hutch is breathing down its neck. On the broadband front, Bharti will have to move beyond enterprises to make its presence felt. Bharti has rolled out GPRS and EDGE on its networks, but lack of content has kept customer interest cold. Bharti is known for its lobbying and so are its competitors. So, do not be surprised if the fight for telecom-market share intensifies in the coming days.