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Bharti Airtel

March 20, 2023

"Airtel" redirects here. For other uses, see Airtel (disambiguation).
This article is about Bharti Airtel worldwide. For Bharti Airtel's telecommunication operations in India, see Airtel India.
Not to be confused with Aircel.

Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as (d/b/a) Airtel, is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. Currently, Airtel provides 4G and 4G+ services all over India and 5G service in selected cities. Currently offered services include fixed-line broadband, and voice services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel had also rolled out its VoLTE technology across all Indian telecom circles.[6] It is the second largest mobile network operator in India and the second largest mobile network operator in the world.[5] Airtel was named India's 2nd most valuable brand in the first ever Brandz ranking by Millward Brown and WPP plc.[7]

Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel registered office in Gurgaon
TypePublic
ISININE397D01024
IndustryTelecommunications
Founded7 July 1995; 27 years ago (1995-07-07)[1]
FounderSunil Mittal
HeadquartersNelson Mandela Road, New Delhi, India[1]
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Products
Revenue ₹117,081 crore (US$15 billion) (2022)[2]
₹10,059 crore (US$1.3 billion) (2022)[2]
₹5,882 crore (US$740 million) (2022)[2]
Total assets ₹416,413 crore (US$52 billion) (2022)[2]
Total equity ₹66,554 crore (US$8.3 billion) (2022)[2]
OwnersBharti Enterprises (66.57%)
Singtel (32.15%)[3]
Google (1.28%)[4]
Members 491.26 million[5]
(March-2022)
Number of employees
48,600 (2022)[5]
Subsidiaries
Websitewww.airtel.com

Airtel is credited with pioneering the business strategy of outsourcing all of its business operations except marketing, sales and finance and building the 'minutes factory' model of low cost and high volumes. The strategy has since been adopted by several operators.[8] Airtel's equipment is provided and maintained by Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia Networks[9] whereas IT support is provided by Amdocs. The transmission towers are maintained by subsidiaries and joint venture companies of Bharti including Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers in India.[10] Ericsson agreed for the first time to be paid by the minute for installation and maintenance of their equipment rather than being paid upfront, which allowed Airtel to provide low call rates of ₹1 (1.3¢ US)/minute.[11]

History

In 1984, Sunil Mittal started assembling push-button phones in India,[12] which he earlier used to import from a Singaporean company, Singtel, replacing the old-fashioned, bulky rotary phones that were in use in the country then. Bharti Telecom Limited (BTL) was incorporated and entered into a technical tie-up with Siemens AG of Germany for the manufacture of electronic push-button phones. By the early 1990s, Bharti was making fax machines, cordless phones and other telecom gear.[13] He named his first push-button phone as 'Mitbrau'.

In 1992, he successfully bid for one of the four mobile phone network licenses auctioned in India.[13] One of the conditions for the Delhi cellular licenses was that the bidder have some experience as a telecom operator. So, Mittal clinched a deal with the French telecom group Vivendi. He was one of the first Indian entrepreneurs to identify the mobile telecom business as a major growth area. His plans were finally approved by the Government in 1994[12] and he launched services in Delhi in 1995, when Bharti Cellular Limited (BCL) was formed to offer cellular services under the brand name AirTel. Within a few years, Bharti became the first telecom company to cross the 2 million mobile subscriber mark. Bharti also brought down the STD/ISD cellular rates in India under the brand name 'India one'.[12]

In 1999, Bharti Enterprises acquired control of JT Holdings, and extended cellular operations to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. In 2000, Bharti acquired control of Skycell Communications, in Chennai. In 2001, the company acquired control of Spice Cell in Calcutta. Bharti Enterprises went public in 2002, and the company was listed on Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India. In 2003, the cellular phone operations were re-branded under the single Airtel brand. In 2004, Bharti acquired control of Hexacom and entered Rajasthan. In 2005, Bharti extended its network to Andaman and Nicobar. This expansion allowed it to offer voice services all across India.

Airtel launched "Hello Tunes", a caller ring back tone service (CRBT), in July 2004 becoming the first operator in India to do so. The Airtel theme song, composed by A.R. Rahman, was the most popular tune in that year.[14]

In May 2008, it emerged that Airtel was exploring the possibility of buying the MTN Group, a South Africa-based telecommunications company with coverage in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. The Financial Times reported that Bharti was considering offering US$45 billion for a 100% stake in MTN, which would be the largest overseas acquisition ever by an Indian firm. However, both sides emphasize the tentative nature of the talks, while The Economist magazine noted, "If anything, Bharti would be marrying up," as MTN has more subscribers, higher revenues and broader geographic coverage.[15] However, the talks fell apart as MTN Group tried to reverse the negotiations by making Bharti almost a subsidiary of the new company.[16] In May 2009, Bharti Airtel again confirmed that it was in talks with MTN and the companies agreed to discuss the potential transaction exclusively by 31 July 2009. Talks eventually ended without agreement, some sources stating that this was due to opposition from the South African government.[17]

 
Logo used by Airtel from 1994 to 2002
 
Logo used by Airtel until November 2010

In 2009, Bharti negotiated for its strategic partner Alcatel-Lucent to manage the network infrastructure for the fixed-line business. Later, Bharti Airtel awarded the three-year contract to Alcatel-Lucent for setting up an Internet Protocol access network across the country. This would help consumers access internet at faster-speed and high-quality internet browsing on mobile handsets.[18]

In 2009, Airtel launched its first international mobile network in Sri Lanka.[19] In June 2010, Bharti acquired the African business of Zain Telecom for $10.7 billion making it the largest ever acquisition by an Indian telecom firm.[20] In 2012, Bharti tied up with Wal-Mart, the US retail giant, to start a number of retail stores across India.[21] In 2014, Bharti planned to acquire Loop Mobile for ₹7 billion (US$88 million), but the deal was called off later.[22]

On 18 November 2010, Airtel rebranded itself in India in the first phase of a global rebranding strategy. The company unveiled a new logo with 'airtel' written in lower case. Designed by London-based brand agency, The Brand Union, the new logo is the letter 'a' in lowercase, with 'airtel' written in lowercase under the logo.[23] On 23 November 2010, Airtel's Africa operations were rebranded to 'airtel'. Sri Lanka followed on 28 November 2010 and on 20 December 2010, Warid Telecom rebranded to 'airtel' in Bangladesh.

Acquisitions and mergers

MTN Group merger negotiations

In May 2005, it emerged that Airtel was exploring the possibility of buying the MTN Group, a South Africa-based telecommunications company with operations in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. The Financial Times reported that Bharti was considering offering US$45 billion for a 100% stake in MTN, which would be the largest overseas acquisition ever by an Indian firm. However, both sides emphasized the tentative nature of the talks. The Economist magazine noted, "If anything, Bharti would be marrying up", as MTN had more subscribers, higher revenues and broader geographic coverage.[24] However, the talks fell apart as MTN Group tried to reverse the negotiations by making Bharti almost a subsidiary of the new company.[25]

In May 2009, Airtel confirmed that it was again in talks with MTN and both companies agreed to discuss the potential transaction exclusively by 31 July 2009.[26] Airtel said "Bharti Airtel Ltd is pleased to announce that it has renewed its effort for a significant partnership with MTN Group".[27] The exclusivity period was extended twice up to 30 September 2009. Talks eventually ended without agreement.[28]

A solution was proposed where the new company would be listed on two stock exchanges, one in South Africa and one in India. However, dual-listing of companies is not permitted by Indian law.[29]

Acquisition of Zain's Africa operations

Further information: Zain Group

In June 2010, Bharti struck a deal to buy Zain's mobile operations in 15 African countries, in India's second-biggest overseas acquisition after Tata Steel's $13 billion buy of Corus in 2007. Bharti Airtel completed its $10.7 billion acquisition of African operations from the Kuwaiti firm on 8 June 2010, making Airtel the world's fifth largest wireless carrier by subscriber base.[30] Airtel has reported that its revenues for the fourth quarter of 2010 grew by 53% to US$3.2 billion compared to the previous year, newly acquired Zain Africa division contributed US$911 million to the total. However, net profits dropped by 41% from US$470 million in 2009 to US$291 million in 2010 due to a US$188 million increase in radio spectrum charges in India and an increase of US$106 million in debt interest.[citation needed]

Warid Bangladesh and Robi

Further information: Warid Bangladesh and Robi (company)

In 2010, Warid Telecom sold a majority 70.90% stake in the company to Bharti Airtel for US$300 million.[31] The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission approved the deal on 4 January 2010.[32] Bharti Airtel Limited took management control of the company and its board, and rebranded the company's services under its own "airtel" brand from 20 December 2010.[33][34] Warid Telecom sold its remaining 30% share to Bharti Airtel's Singapore-based concern Bharti Airtel Holdings Pte Limited in March 2013.[35]

On 16 November 2016, airtel Bangladesh was merged into Robi as a product brand of Robi, where Robi Axiata Limited is the licensee of airtel brand in Bangladesh.[36] Robi is a joint venture between Malaysian telecom operator Axiata holding 61.82% and Bharti Airtel holding 28.18%.[37]

Telecom Seychelles

On 11 August 2010, Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire a 100% stake in Telecom Seychelles for US$62 million taking its global presence to 19 countries. Telecom Seychelles began operations in 1998 and operates 3G, fixed-line, ship to shore services, satellite telephony, among value added services like VSAT and Gateways for International Traffic across Seychelles under the Airtel brand. The company has over 57% share of the mobile market of Seychelles.[38] Airtel announced plans to invest US$10 million in its fixed and mobile telecoms network in Seychelles over three years, whilst also participating in the Seychelles East Africa submarine cable (SEAS) project. The US$34 million SEAS project is aimed at improving Seychelles' global connectivity by building a 2,000 km undersea high-speed link to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.[39]

Wireless Business Services Private Limited

On 24 May 2012, Airtel announced an agreement to acquire a 40% stake in Wireless Business Services Private Limited (WBSPL) at an investment of ₹9.07 billion (US$110 million).[40] WBSPL was a joint venture founded by Qualcomm and held BWA spectrum in the telecom circles of Delhi, Haryana, Kerala and Mumbai.[41] Qualcomm had spent US$1 billion to acquire BWA spectrum in those 4 circles.[42] The deal gave Airtel a 4G presence in 18 circles.[40] On 4 July 2013, Airtel announced that it had acquired an additional 5% equity share capital (making its stake 51%)[43] in all the four BWA entities of Qualcomm, thereby making them its subsidiaries.[44] On 18 October 2013, Airtel announced that it had acquired 100 percent equity shares of WBSPL for an undisclosed sum,[45][46] making it a wholly owned subsidiary.[47][48]

Augere Wireless

Airtel purchased Augere Wireless Broadband India Private Limited, a company that owned 4G spectrum in the Chhattisgarh-Madhya Pradesh circle for an undisclosed sum in December 2015. The Economic Times estimated Augere's spectrum to be worth ₹1.5 billion (US$19 million).[49] On 16 February 2017, Airtel announced that the merger of Augere Wireless into Bharti Airtel Limited had been completed.[50]

Telenor India

On 2 January 2017, The Economic Times reported that Airtel had entered into discussions with Telenor India to acquire the latter.[51][52] On 23 February 2017, Airtel announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Telenor. As part of the deal, Airtel will acquire Telenor India's assets and customers in all seven telecom circles that the latter operates in - Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West) and Assam. Airtel will gain a 43.4 MHz spectrum in the 1800 MHz band from the Telenor acquisition.[53][54] Business Standard reported that it was a no-cash deal, but would cost Airtel ₹1,600 crore over a 10-year period due to spectrum license payments.[55]

Tikona 4G spectrum

On 23 March 2017, The Economic Times reported that Airtel had acquired Tikona Digital Networks Pvt. Ltd's 4G spectrum for approximately ₹1,600 crores.[56] The deal also includes Tikona's 350 cellular sites in 5 circles. Tikona had purchased 20 MHz of 4G spectrum in the 2,300 MHz band in the 2010 auctions in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West) and Rajasthan for ₹1,058 crores. Prior to the deal, Airtel did not hold any spectrum in the 2300 MHz band in UP (East), UP (West) and Rajasthan, and held 10 MHz each in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.[57][58] Tikona's co-founder Rajesh Tiwari sent a legal notice to both companies for not providing details regarding the splitting of proceeds among shareholders.[59]

Tigo Rwanda

Bharti Airtel announced on 12 December 2017 that its Rwandan subsidiary had signed an agreement with Millicom to acquire complete control of the latter's Rwandan subsidiary which operates under the brand name of Tigo Rwanda. The deal was estimated to be worth $60–70 million.[60] The company operated as Airtel-Tigo following the merger, until it was rebranded as Airtel Rwanda in January 2020.[61][62]

Tata Docomo

In October 2017, Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire the consumer mobile businesses of Tata Teleservices, Tata Docomo and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd (TTML), in a debt-free cash-free deal. The deal will essentially be free for Airtel which will only incur TTSL's unpaid spectrum payment liability. TTSL will continue to operate its enterprise, fixed -line and broadband businesses and its stake in tower company Viom Networks.[63][64][65] The deal received approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in mid-November 2017.[66][67] On 29 August 2018, Bharti Airtel got its shareholders' approval for the merger proposal with Tata Teleservices.[68] On 17 January 2019, NCLT Delhi gave final approval for merger between Tata Docomo and Airtel.[69] On July 1, 2019, the consumer mobile business of Tata Teleservices has become part of telecom operator Bharti Airtel.[70]

Airtel will absorb the Tata Sons-owned telco's consumer mobile operations in 19 circles across India—17 under Tata Teleservices and two under Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd. As part of the proposed agreement, Airtel will also take over a small portion of the unpaid spectrum liability of Tata Teleservices. Bharti Airtel will get an additional 178.5 MHz of spectrum in three bands—1800 MHz, 2100 MHz and 850 MHz—that are widely used for 4G, an area where Airtel is expanding fast to keep pace with Reliance Jio Infocomm. Airtel will also add about 13 million of Tata Tele's mobile subscribers as of April 2019 to its nearly 322 million users. But most of Tata Tele's mobile users are inactive, as per the regulator.[71]

Aqilliz

In February 2022, Bharti Airtel announced that it has acquired a strategic stake in a blockchain startup Aqilliz via its "Airtel Startup Accelerator Program". Singapore-based Aqilliz is a blockchain-enabled MediaTech startup offering a new age middleware technology for the media marketplace and create a more collaborative digital marketing environment.[72]

Airtel India

Main article: Airtel India

Bharti Telecom (BTL) is a holding company of Bharti Airtel with Bharti Enterprises and Singtel owning 50.56 percent and 49.44 percent, respectively, in BTL, which in turn owns 35.80 percent of Bharti Airtel.[73]

Airtel India is the second largest provider of mobile telephony after Jio and the second largest provider of fixed telephony in India and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services. It offers its telecom services under the Airtel brand, and is headed by Sunil Bharti Mittal.

Broadband

Airtel provides broadband internet access through DSL, internet leased lines and MPLS (multiprotocol label switching) solutions[buzzword], as well as IPTV and fixed line telephone services. Until 18 September 2004, Bharti provided fixed line telephony and broadband services under the Touchtel brand. Bharti now provides all telecom services including fixed line services under the common brand Airtel. As of June 2019, Airtel provides Telemedia services; in 99 cities.[74] As on 30 June 2019, Airtel had 2.342 million broadband subscribers.[75]

Airtel Broadband provides broadband and IPTV services. Airtel provides both capped as well as unlimited download plans. However, Airtel's unlimited plans are subject to free usage policy (FUP), which reduces speed after the customer crosses a certain data usage limit. In most of the plans, Airtel provides only 64KByte/second beyond FUP which is equal to other competitors' tariffs. The maximum speed available for home users under the new V-Fiber program is up to 300Mbit/s and with DSL is 16Mbit/s.

In May 2012, Airtel Broadband and some other Indian ISPs temporarily blocked file sharing websites such as vimeo.com, megavideo.com, and thepiratebay.se, without giving any legal information to customers.[76]

In June 2011, The Economic Times reported that the Telemedia business was merged with Mobile and DTH businesses.[77]

Digital television

Main article: Airtel digital TV

The digital television business provides Direct-to-Home (DTH) TV services across India under the brand name Airtel digital TV. It started services on 9 October 2008 and had about 16.027 million customers at the end of June 2019.[78]

Banking

Main article: Airtel Payments Bank

Airtel Payments Bank was launched in January 2017.[79]

Business

Airtel Business[80] consists largely of six products: cloud and managed services, digital signage, NLD/ILD connectivity (VSAT / MPLS / IPLC and Ethernet products), Wi-Fi dongles, voice solutions[buzzword] (like toll-free numbers, TracMate, and automated media reading) and conferencing solutions (VoIP, audio, video, and web conferencing), serving industry verticals like BFSI, IT/ITeS, manufacturing, hospitality and government.

Airtel Business, the B2B arm of Bharti Airtel, has rolled out a first of its kind dedicated digital platform to serve the growing connectivity, communication and collaboration requirements of emerging businesses, including SMEs and startups. The digital platform will offer solutions[buzzword] to emerging enterprises to enable ease of business and faster time to market.[81]

Android-based tablet

Beetel Teletech Ltd., a unit of Bharti Enterprises Ltd., on 18 August 2011, launched a ₹9,999 (US$130) 7-inch tablet in India based on Google Inc.'s Android operating system. The offering is intended to capitalise on the expected demand for cheap computing devices in the world's fastest-growing and second-largest mobile phone market.[82]

International presence

 
Coverage map of Bharti Airtel across 17 countries.
  Current operations
  Joint venture/Minority shareholder
  Former operations

Airtel is the third- largest mobile operator in the world by subscriber base and has a commercial presence in 17 countries and the Channel Islands.

Its area of operations include:

Airtel operates in the following countries:

Country Operator name Remarks
  Bangladesh Robi Airtel Bangladesh was merged into Robi Axiata Limited in which Bharti Airtel holds a 28.18% stake.[83]
  Chad airtel Chad Airtel Chad is the No. 1 operator with 69% market share.[83]
  Democratic Republic of the Congo airtel DRC Airtel is the market leader with almost 5 million customers at the end of 2010.[citation needed]
  Gabon airtel Gabon Airtel Gabon has 829,000 customers and its market share stood at 61%.[citation needed]
  India airtel India Airtel is the second largest mobile operator with 348.3 million customers as of May 2021.[84]
  Kenya Airtel Kenya Airtel Kenya is the second largest operator and has 8.6 million subscribers.[85]
  Madagascar airtel Madagascar Airtel is the market leader in Madagascar with 39% market share and 2.5 million customers.[83]
  Malawi airtel Malawi Airtel Malawi is the market leader with a market share of 72%.[83]
  Niger airtel Niger Airtel Niger is the market leader with a 68% market share.[83]
  Nigeria airtel Nigeria Airtel Nigeria is the third largest operator in Nigeria with a 26.92% market share and 50.2 million customers.
  Republic of the Congo airtel Congo B Airtel Congo is the market leader with a 55% market share.[83]
  Rwanda airtel Rwanda Airtel launched services in Rwanda on 30 March 2012.[86]
  Seychelles airtel Seychelles Airtel is the leading comprehensive telecommunications services provider with over 55% market share of mobile market in Seychelles.[87]
  Sri Lanka airtel Sri Lanka Airtel Sri Lanka commenced operations on 12 January 2009. It had about 1.8 million mobile customers at the end of 2010.[88]
  Tanzania airtel Tanzania Airtel Tanzania is the market leader with a 38% market share.[83]
  Uganda airtel Uganda Airtel Uganda stands as the No. 2 operator with a market share of 38%.[83]
  Zambia airtel Zambia Airtel Zambia is the second market leader in Zambia with a 40% market share of the mobile network sector.[89]
Channel Islands† :   Jersey
  Guernsey 		Airtel-Vodafone Airtel operates in the Channel Islands under the brand name Airtel–Vodafone in a joint venture agreement with Vodafone.

†Jersey and Guernsey are British Crown Dependencies. They are not independent countries. Therefore, Airtel's countries of operation are considered to be 17.

Africa

Main article: airtel Africa
 
Airtel Nigeria headquarters in Banana Island, Lagos.
 
Airtel Tanzania headquarters in Dar es Salaam.

Airtel Africa is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, which provides telecommunications and mobile money services in 14 countries in Africa, primarily in East, Central, and West Africa. Airtel Nigeria is the most profitable unit of Airtel Africa, due to its cheap data plans in Nigeria. As of March 2019, Airtel had over 99 million subscribers on the continent.[90] It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.[91]

On 8 June 2010, Bharti Airtel completed the purchase of mobile operations in 15 African countries from Zain, a Kuwaiti operator.[92]

On 11 August 2010, Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire Telecom Seychelles for US$62 million.[38]

On 15 August 2017, Bharti Airtel and Millicom's Tigo in Ghana merged to form new company AirtelTigo.[93] On 27 October 2020, Airtel announced that it planned to exit its business in Ghana, and that it had entered into "advanced stages of discussions" for sale of shares in AirtelTigo to the Government of Ghana.[94]

Sale to Orange

On 13 January 2016, France-based Orange SA and Bharti Airtel inked a deal to sell Airtel's operations in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone to Orange. On 19 July 2016, Airtel completed the deal.[citation needed]

Bangladesh

airtel Bangladesh Ltd. was a GSM-based cellular operator in Bangladesh. Airtel was the sixth mobile phone carrier to enter the Bangladesh market, and originally launched commercial operations under the brand name "Warid Telecom" on 10 May 2007. Warid Telecom International LLC, an Abu Dhabi–based consortium, sold a majority 70% stake in the company to India's Bharti Airtel Limited for US$300 million.[31]

On 16 November 2016, airtel Bangladesh was merged into Robi as a product brand of Robi Axiata, where Robi Axiata Limited is the licensee of the Airtel brand in Bangladesh.[36] Robi at present is a joint venture between Axiata Group of Malaysia, Bharti Airtel of India and NTT Docomo Inc. of Japan. Axiata holds 68.7% controlling stake in the entity, Bharti holds 25% while the remaining 6.3% is held by NTT Docomo of Japan.[37]

Sri Lanka

Main article: airtel Sri Lanka

Bharti Airtel Lanka (Pvt) Ltd is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Limited. Bharti Airtel has been featured in Forbes Asia's Fab 50 list, rated amongst the best-performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list 2007, and voted as India's most innovative company in a survey by The Wall Street Journal.[citation needed]

Airtel Lanka commenced commercial operations of services on 13 January 2009. Granted a license in 2007 in accordance with the Sri Lanka Telecommunications Act No. 25 of 1991, it is also a registered company under the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka. Under the license, the company provides digital mobile services to Sri Lanka. This is inclusive of voice telephony, voicemail, data services and GSM-based services. All of these services are provided under the Airtel brand.

Channel Islands: Jersey and Guernsey

Main article: Airtel-Vodafone

On 1 May 2007, Jersey Airtel and Guernsey Airtel, both wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Bharti Group, announced they would launch mobile services in the British Crown Dependency islands of Jersey and Guernsey[95][96] under the brand name Airtel-Vodafone after signing an agreement with Vodafone. Airtel-Vodafone operates a 4G network in Jersey and Guernsey.

Subscriber base

Bharti Airtel has about 303.08 million subscribers worldwide—264.58 million in India and South Asia and 50.949 million in Africa as of December 2011. The numbers include mobile services subscribers in 19 countries and Indian Telemedia services and Digital services subscribers.[97]

One Network

One Network is a mobile phone network that allows Airtel customers to use the service in a number of countries at the same price as their home network. Customers can place outgoing calls at the same rate as their local network, and incoming calls are free.[98] As of 2014, the service is available in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Gabon, Ghana, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia only for international roamers from Airtel Africa[99]

Joint ventures and agreements

Airtel-Vodafone

Main article: Airtel-Vodafone

On 1 May 2007, Jersey Airtel and Guernsey Airtel, both wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Bharti Group, announced they would launch mobile services in the British Crown Dependency islands of Jersey and Guernsey[95][96] under the brand name Airtel-Vodafone after signing an agreement with Vodafone. Airtel-Vodafone operates a 4G network in Jersey and Guernsey.

Airtel-Ericsson

In July 2011, Bharti signed a five-year agreement with Ericsson, who will manage and optimize Airtel's mobile networks in Africa. Ericsson will modernize and upgrade Airtel's mobile networks in Africa with the latest technology including its multi-standard RBS 6000 base station. As part of the modernization, Ericsson will also provide technology consulting, network planning & design and network deployment. Ericsson has been the managed services and network technology partner in Asian operations.[100]

Sponsorship

On 9 May 2009, Airtel signed a major deal with Manchester United. As a result of the deal, Airtel had the rights to broadcast the matches played by the team to its customers.

Bharti Airtel signed a five-year deal with ESPN Star Sports to become the title sponsor of the Champions League Twenty20 cricket tournament.[101]

Airtel also signed a deal to be the title sponsor of the Formula One Indian Grand Prix.[102]

Airtel sponsored the 2018–21 FIA GT World Cup.

Airtel signed a deal to be the title sponsor of the I-League for 2013–14 I-League.[103]

Airtel is also the main sponsor of Airtel Super Singer and Airtel Super Singer Junior since 2006, which are currently broadcast on Vijay TV.

Signature tune

The signature tune of Airtel is composed by Indian musician A. R. Rahman. The tune became hugely popular and is the world's most downloaded mobile music, with over 150 million downloads. Rahman along with Anu Malik re-used the same tune in a 2004 Kannada movie Love.[104] A new version of the song was released on 18 November 2010, as part of the rebranding of the company.[104][105] This version was also composed by Rahman.[105]

Controversies

Net neutrality debate

Further information: Net neutrality in India

In February 2014, Gopal Vittal, CEO of Airtel's India operations, said that companies offering free messaging apps like Skype, Line and WhatsApp should be regulated similar to telecom operators.[106] In August 2014, TRAI rejected a proposal from telecom companies to make messaging application firms share part of their revenue with the carriers or the government.[107] In November 2014, TRAI began investigating if Airtel was implementing preferential access by offering special internet packs which allowed WhatsApp and Facebook data at rates that were lower than its standard data rates.[108] The statements of Chua Sock Koong, Group CEO of Singtel and also a shareholder (32.15%) of Bharti Airtel share similar statements about the Anti-Net Neutrality position.

In December 2014, Airtel changed its service terms for 2G and 3G data packs so that VoIP data was excluded from the set amount of free data. A standard data charge of 4 paise (0.050¢ US) per 10 KB for 3G service and 10 paise (0.13¢ US) per 10 KB (more than ₹10,000 (US$130) for 1 GB) for 2G service was levied on VoIP data.[109] A few days later, Airtel announced a separate internet pack for VoIP apps, it offered 75 MB for ₹75 (94¢ US) with a validity of 28 days.[110] The TRAI chief Rahul Khullar said that Airtel cannot be held responsible for violating net neutrality because India has no regulation that demands net neutrality.[111] Airtel's move faced criticism on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.[112] Later on 29 December 2014, Airtel announced that it would not be implementing the planned changes, pointing out that there were reports that TRAI would be soon releasing a consultation paper on the issue.[113]

In April 2015, Airtel announced the "Airtel Zero" scheme. Under the scheme, app firms will sign a contract and Airtel will provide the apps for free to its customers.[114] The reports of Flipkart, an e-commerce firm, joining the "Airtel Zero" scheme drew negative response. People began to give the one-star rating to its app on Google Play.[115][116] Following the protest, Flipkart decided to pull out of Airtel Zero. The e-commerce giant confirmed the news in an official statement, saying, "We will be walking away from the ongoing discussions with Airtel for their platform Airtel Zero."[117]

In October 2016, India's telecom regulator TRAI recommended imposing a combined penalty of ₹3,050 crore (equivalent to ₹37 billion or US$470 million in 2020) on three mobile network operators — Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular — for denying interconnection to Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio), the latest entrant into India's telecom service.[118]

User privacy

In June 2015, a code used by the company was accused of compromising subscribers' privacy.[119][120][121][122]

eKYC licence suspension

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) suspended Bharti Airtel and Airtel Payments Bank Limited's licence for eKYC of Aadhar on 16 December 2017, following complaints from customers that their accounts were being opened without their consent. Some even received their LPG subsidies in their Airtel Payments Bank accounts.[123]

Airtel app security flaw

On 8 December 2019, a serious security fault was detected that existed in Airtel's API. The bug allowed potential threat actors to "fetch sensitive user information of any Airtel subscriber."[124] Shiraz Ahmed was the first to observe this security vulnerability, and he released a video demonstrating a script being used to obtain information from the Airtel's mobile app's API.[125][126] On his blog, Ehraz concluded that such flaw can result in "revealed information like first and last name, gender, email, date of birth, address, subscription information, device capability information for 4G, 3G & GPRS, network information, activation date, user type (prepaid or postpaid) and current IMEI number", all being very sensitive user information.[126]

Airtel acknowledged the issue and it was fixed shortly after, it is yet to confirm whether there was an actual data breach or not.[124]

See also

References

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External links

  Media related to Bharti Airtel at Wikimedia Commons

  • Official website  

March 20, 2023
bharti, airtel, airtel, redirects, here, other, uses, airtel, disambiguation, this, article, about, worldwide, telecommunication, operations, india, airtel, india, confused, with, aircel, limited, commonly, known, airtel, indian, multinational, telecommunicati. Airtel redirects here For other uses see Airtel disambiguation This article is about Bharti Airtel worldwide For Bharti Airtel s telecommunication operations in India see Airtel India Not to be confused with Aircel Bharti Airtel Limited commonly known as d b a Airtel is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa as well as the Channel Islands Currently Airtel provides 4G and 4G services all over India and 5G service in selected cities Currently offered services include fixed line broadband and voice services depending upon the country of operation Airtel had also rolled out its VoLTE technology across all Indian telecom circles 6 It is the second largest mobile network operator in India and the second largest mobile network operator in the world 5 Airtel was named India s 2nd most valuable brand in the first ever Brandz ranking by Millward Brown and WPP plc 7 Bharti AirtelBharti Airtel registered office in GurgaonTypePublicTraded asBSE 532454NSE BHARTIARTLBSE SENSEX ConstituentNSE NIFTY 50 ConstituentISININE397D01024IndustryTelecommunicationsFounded7 July 1995 27 years ago 1995 07 07 1 FounderSunil MittalHeadquartersNelson Mandela Road New Delhi India 1 Area servedWorldwideKey peopleSunil Mittal Chairman Gopal Vittal MD amp CEO ProductsFixed line telephoneMobile telephonyBroadbandSatellite televisionPayments bankDigital televisionInternet televisionIPTVRevenue 117 081 crore US 15 billion 2022 2 Operating income 10 059 crore US 1 3 billion 2022 2 Net income 5 882 crore US 740 million 2022 2 Total assets 416 413 crore US 52 billion 2022 2 Total equity 66 554 crore US 8 3 billion 2022 2 OwnersBharti Enterprises 66 57 Singtel 32 15 3 Google 1 28 4 Members491 26 million 5 March 2022 Number of employees48 600 2022 5 SubsidiariesAirtel India Airtel Payments Bank Airtel digital TV Airtel Sri Lanka Airtel Africa Airtel Vodafone 50 Robi 28 18 Wynk MusicWebsitewww wbr airtel wbr comAirtel is credited with pioneering the business strategy of outsourcing all of its business operations except marketing sales and finance and building the minutes factory model of low cost and high volumes The strategy has since been adopted by several operators 8 Airtel s equipment is provided and maintained by Ericsson Huawei and Nokia Networks 9 whereas IT support is provided by Amdocs The transmission towers are maintained by subsidiaries and joint venture companies of Bharti including Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers in India 10 Ericsson agreed for the first time to be paid by the minute for installation and maintenance of their equipment rather than being paid upfront which allowed Airtel to provide low call rates of 1 1 3 US minute 11 Contents 1 History 1 1 Acquisitions and mergers 1 1 1 MTN Group merger negotiations 1 1 2 Acquisition of Zain s Africa operations 1 1 3 Warid Bangladesh and Robi 1 1 4 Telecom Seychelles 1 1 5 Wireless Business Services Private Limited 1 1 6 Augere Wireless 1 1 7 Telenor India 1 1 8 Tikona 4G spectrum 1 1 9 Tigo Rwanda 1 1 10 Tata Docomo 1 1 11 Aqilliz 2 Airtel India 2 1 Broadband 2 2 Digital television 2 3 Banking 2 4 Business 2 5 Android based tablet 3 International presence 3 1 Africa 3 1 1 Sale to Orange 3 2 Bangladesh 3 3 Sri Lanka 3 4 Channel Islands Jersey and Guernsey 3 5 Subscriber base 3 6 One Network 4 Joint ventures and agreements 4 1 Airtel Vodafone 4 2 Airtel Ericsson 5 Sponsorship 6 Signature tune 7 Controversies 7 1 Net neutrality debate 7 2 User privacy 7 3 eKYC licence suspension 8 Airtel app security flaw 9 See also 10 References 11 External linksHistory EditIn 1984 Sunil Mittal started assembling push button phones in India 12 which he earlier used to import from a Singaporean company Singtel replacing the old fashioned bulky rotary phones that were in use in the country then Bharti Telecom Limited BTL was incorporated and entered into a technical tie up with Siemens AG of Germany for the manufacture of electronic push button phones By the early 1990s Bharti was making fax machines cordless phones and other telecom gear 13 He named his first push button phone as Mitbrau In 1992 he successfully bid for one of the four mobile phone network licenses auctioned in India 13 One of the conditions for the Delhi cellular licenses was that the bidder have some experience as a telecom operator So Mittal clinched a deal with the French telecom group Vivendi He was one of the first Indian entrepreneurs to identify the mobile telecom business as a major growth area His plans were finally approved by the Government in 1994 12 and he launched services in Delhi in 1995 when Bharti Cellular Limited BCL was formed to offer cellular services under the brand name AirTel Within a few years Bharti became the first telecom company to cross the 2 million mobile subscriber mark Bharti also brought down the STD ISD cellular rates in India under the brand name India one 12 In 1999 Bharti Enterprises acquired control of JT Holdings and extended cellular operations to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh In 2000 Bharti acquired control of Skycell Communications in Chennai In 2001 the company acquired control of Spice Cell in Calcutta Bharti Enterprises went public in 2002 and the company was listed on Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India In 2003 the cellular phone operations were re branded under the single Airtel brand In 2004 Bharti acquired control of Hexacom and entered Rajasthan In 2005 Bharti extended its network to Andaman and Nicobar This expansion allowed it to offer voice services all across India Airtel launched Hello Tunes a caller ring back tone service CRBT in July 2004 becoming the first operator in India to do so The Airtel theme song composed by A R Rahman was the most popular tune in that year 14 In May 2008 it emerged that Airtel was exploring the possibility of buying the MTN Group a South Africa based telecommunications company with coverage in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East The Financial Times reported that Bharti was considering offering US 45 billion for a 100 stake in MTN which would be the largest overseas acquisition ever by an Indian firm However both sides emphasize the tentative nature of the talks while The Economist magazine noted If anything Bharti would be marrying up as MTN has more subscribers higher revenues and broader geographic coverage 15 However the talks fell apart as MTN Group tried to reverse the negotiations by making Bharti almost a subsidiary of the new company 16 In May 2009 Bharti Airtel again confirmed that it was in talks with MTN and the companies agreed to discuss the potential transaction exclusively by 31 July 2009 Talks eventually ended without agreement some sources stating that this was due to opposition from the South African government 17 Logo used by Airtel from 1994 to 2002 Logo used by Airtel until November 2010 In 2009 Bharti negotiated for its strategic partner Alcatel Lucent to manage the network infrastructure for the fixed line business Later Bharti Airtel awarded the three year contract to Alcatel Lucent for setting up an Internet Protocol access network across the country This would help consumers access internet at faster speed and high quality internet browsing on mobile handsets 18 In 2009 Airtel launched its first international mobile network in Sri Lanka 19 In June 2010 Bharti acquired the African business of Zain Telecom for 10 7 billion making it the largest ever acquisition by an Indian telecom firm 20 In 2012 Bharti tied up with Wal Mart the US retail giant to start a number of retail stores across India 21 In 2014 Bharti planned to acquire Loop Mobile for 7 billion US 88 million but the deal was called off later 22 On 18 November 2010 Airtel rebranded itself in India in the first phase of a global rebranding strategy The company unveiled a new logo with airtel written in lower case Designed by London based brand agency The Brand Union the new logo is the letter a in lowercase with airtel written in lowercase under the logo 23 On 23 November 2010 Airtel s Africa operations were rebranded to airtel Sri Lanka followed on 28 November 2010 and on 20 December 2010 Warid Telecom rebranded to airtel in Bangladesh Acquisitions and mergers Edit MTN Group merger negotiations Edit In May 2005 it emerged that Airtel was exploring the possibility of buying the MTN Group a South Africa based telecommunications company with operations in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East The Financial Times reported that Bharti was considering offering US 45 billion for a 100 stake in MTN which would be the largest overseas acquisition ever by an Indian firm However both sides emphasized the tentative nature of the talks The Economist magazine noted If anything Bharti would be marrying up as MTN had more subscribers higher revenues and broader geographic coverage 24 However the talks fell apart as MTN Group tried to reverse the negotiations by making Bharti almost a subsidiary of the new company 25 In May 2009 Airtel confirmed that it was again in talks with MTN and both companies agreed to discuss the potential transaction exclusively by 31 July 2009 26 Airtel said Bharti Airtel Ltd is pleased to announce that it has renewed its effort for a significant partnership with MTN Group 27 The exclusivity period was extended twice up to 30 September 2009 Talks eventually ended without agreement 28 A solution was proposed where the new company would be listed on two stock exchanges one in South Africa and one in India However dual listing of companies is not permitted by Indian law 29 Acquisition of Zain s Africa operations Edit Further information Zain Group In June 2010 Bharti struck a deal to buy Zain s mobile operations in 15 African countries in India s second biggest overseas acquisition after Tata Steel s 13 billion buy of Corus in 2007 Bharti Airtel completed its 10 7 billion acquisition of African operations from the Kuwaiti firm on 8 June 2010 making Airtel the world s fifth largest wireless carrier by subscriber base 30 Airtel has reported that its revenues for the fourth quarter of 2010 grew by 53 to US 3 2 billion compared to the previous year newly acquired Zain Africa division contributed US 911 million to the total However net profits dropped by 41 from US 470 million in 2009 to US 291 million in 2010 due to a US 188 million increase in radio spectrum charges in India and an increase of US 106 million in debt interest citation needed Warid Bangladesh and Robi Edit Further information Warid Bangladesh and Robi company In 2010 Warid Telecom sold a majority 70 90 stake in the company to Bharti Airtel for US 300 million 31 The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission approved the deal on 4 January 2010 32 Bharti Airtel Limited took management control of the company and its board and rebranded the company s services under its own airtel brand from 20 December 2010 33 34 Warid Telecom sold its remaining 30 share to Bharti Airtel s Singapore based concern Bharti Airtel Holdings Pte Limited in March 2013 35 On 16 November 2016 airtel Bangladesh was merged into Robi as a product brand of Robi where Robi Axiata Limited is the licensee of airtel brand in Bangladesh 36 Robi is a joint venture between Malaysian telecom operator Axiata holding 61 82 and Bharti Airtel holding 28 18 37 Telecom Seychelles Edit On 11 August 2010 Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire a 100 stake in Telecom Seychelles for US 62 million taking its global presence to 19 countries Telecom Seychelles began operations in 1998 and operates 3G fixed line ship to shore services satellite telephony among value added services like VSAT and Gateways for International Traffic across Seychelles under the Airtel brand The company has over 57 share of the mobile market of Seychelles 38 Airtel announced plans to invest US 10 million in its fixed and mobile telecoms network in Seychelles over three years whilst also participating in the Seychelles East Africa submarine cable SEAS project The US 34 million SEAS project is aimed at improving Seychelles global connectivity by building a 2 000 km undersea high speed link to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania 39 Wireless Business Services Private Limited Edit On 24 May 2012 Airtel announced an agreement to acquire a 40 stake in Wireless Business Services Private Limited WBSPL at an investment of 9 07 billion US 110 million 40 WBSPL was a joint venture founded by Qualcomm and held BWA spectrum in the telecom circles of Delhi Haryana Kerala and Mumbai 41 Qualcomm had spent US 1 billion to acquire BWA spectrum in those 4 circles 42 The deal gave Airtel a 4G presence in 18 circles 40 On 4 July 2013 Airtel announced that it had acquired an additional 5 equity share capital making its stake 51 43 in all the four BWA entities of Qualcomm thereby making them its subsidiaries 44 On 18 October 2013 Airtel announced that it had acquired 100 percent equity shares of WBSPL for an undisclosed sum 45 46 making it a wholly owned subsidiary 47 48 Augere Wireless Edit Airtel purchased Augere Wireless Broadband India Private Limited a company that owned 4G spectrum in the Chhattisgarh Madhya Pradesh circle for an undisclosed sum in December 2015 The Economic Times estimated Augere s spectrum to be worth 1 5 billion US 19 million 49 On 16 February 2017 Airtel announced that the merger of Augere Wireless into Bharti Airtel Limited had been completed 50 Telenor India Edit On 2 January 2017 The Economic Times reported that Airtel had entered into discussions with Telenor India to acquire the latter 51 52 On 23 February 2017 Airtel announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Telenor As part of the deal Airtel will acquire Telenor India s assets and customers in all seven telecom circles that the latter operates in Andhra Pradesh Bihar Maharashtra Gujarat Uttar Pradesh East Uttar Pradesh West and Assam Airtel will gain a 43 4 MHz spectrum in the 1800 MHz band from the Telenor acquisition 53 54 Business Standard reported that it was a no cash deal but would cost Airtel 1 600 crore over a 10 year period due to spectrum license payments 55 Tikona 4G spectrum Edit On 23 March 2017 The Economic Times reported that Airtel had acquired Tikona Digital Networks Pvt Ltd s 4G spectrum for approximately 1 600 crores 56 The deal also includes Tikona s 350 cellular sites in 5 circles Tikona had purchased 20 MHz of 4G spectrum in the 2 300 MHz band in the 2010 auctions in Gujarat Himachal Pradesh Uttar Pradesh East Uttar Pradesh West and Rajasthan for 1 058 crores Prior to the deal Airtel did not hold any spectrum in the 2300 MHz band in UP East UP West and Rajasthan and held 10 MHz each in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh 57 58 Tikona s co founder Rajesh Tiwari sent a legal notice to both companies for not providing details regarding the splitting of proceeds among shareholders 59 Tigo Rwanda Edit Bharti Airtel announced on 12 December 2017 that its Rwandan subsidiary had signed an agreement with Millicom to acquire complete control of the latter s Rwandan subsidiary which operates under the brand name of Tigo Rwanda The deal was estimated to be worth 60 70 million 60 The company operated as Airtel Tigo following the merger until it was rebranded as Airtel Rwanda in January 2020 61 62 Tata Docomo Edit In October 2017 Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire the consumer mobile businesses of Tata Teleservices Tata Docomo and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd TTML in a debt free cash free deal The deal will essentially be free for Airtel which will only incur TTSL s unpaid spectrum payment liability TTSL will continue to operate its enterprise fixed line and broadband businesses and its stake in tower company Viom Networks 63 64 65 The deal received approval from the Competition Commission of India CCI in mid November 2017 66 67 On 29 August 2018 Bharti Airtel got its shareholders approval for the merger proposal with Tata Teleservices 68 On 17 January 2019 NCLT Delhi gave final approval for merger between Tata Docomo and Airtel 69 On July 1 2019 the consumer mobile business of Tata Teleservices has become part of telecom operator Bharti Airtel 70 Airtel will absorb the Tata Sons owned telco s consumer mobile operations in 19 circles across India 17 under Tata Teleservices and two under Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd As part of the proposed agreement Airtel will also take over a small portion of the unpaid spectrum liability of Tata Teleservices Bharti Airtel will get an additional 178 5 MHz of spectrum in three bands 1800 MHz 2100 MHz and 850 MHz that are widely used for 4G an area where Airtel is expanding fast to keep pace with Reliance Jio Infocomm Airtel will also add about 13 million of Tata Tele s mobile subscribers as of April 2019 to its nearly 322 million users But most of Tata Tele s mobile users are inactive as per the regulator 71 Aqilliz Edit In February 2022 Bharti Airtel announced that it has acquired a strategic stake in a blockchain startup Aqilliz via its Airtel Startup Accelerator Program Singapore based Aqilliz is a blockchain enabled MediaTech startup offering a new age middleware technology for the media marketplace and create a more collaborative digital marketing environment 72 Airtel India EditMain article Airtel India Bharti Telecom BTL is a holding company of Bharti Airtel with Bharti Enterprises and Singtel owning 50 56 percent and 49 44 percent respectively in BTL which in turn owns 35 80 percent of Bharti Airtel 73 Airtel India is the second largest provider of mobile telephony after Jio and the second largest provider of fixed telephony in India and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services It offers its telecom services under the Airtel brand and is headed by Sunil Bharti Mittal Broadband Edit Airtel provides broadband internet access through DSL internet leased lines and MPLS multiprotocol label switching solutions buzzword as well as IPTV and fixed line telephone services Until 18 September 2004 Bharti provided fixed line telephony and broadband services under the Touchtel brand Bharti now provides all telecom services including fixed line services under the common brand Airtel As of June 2019 Airtel provides Telemedia services in 99 cities 74 As on 30 June 2019 Airtel had 2 342 million broadband subscribers 75 Airtel Broadband provides broadband and IPTV services Airtel provides both capped as well as unlimited download plans However Airtel s unlimited plans are subject to free usage policy FUP which reduces speed after the customer crosses a certain data usage limit In most of the plans Airtel provides only 64KByte second beyond FUP which is equal to other competitors tariffs The maximum speed available for home users under the new V Fiber program is up to 300Mbit s and with DSL is 16Mbit s In May 2012 Airtel Broadband and some other Indian ISPs temporarily blocked file sharing websites such as vimeo com megavideo com and thepiratebay se without giving any legal information to customers 76 In June 2011 The Economic Times reported that the Telemedia business was merged with Mobile and DTH businesses 77 Digital television Edit Main article Airtel digital TV The digital television business provides Direct to Home DTH TV services across India under the brand name Airtel digital TV It started services on 9 October 2008 and had about 16 027 million customers at the end of June 2019 78 Banking Edit Main article Airtel Payments Bank Airtel Payments Bank was launched in January 2017 79 Business Edit Airtel Business 80 consists largely of six products cloud and managed services digital signage NLD ILD connectivity VSAT MPLS IPLC and Ethernet products Wi Fi dongles voice solutions buzzword like toll free numbers TracMate and automated media reading and conferencing solutions VoIP audio video and web conferencing serving industry verticals like BFSI IT ITeS manufacturing hospitality and government Airtel Business the B2B arm of Bharti Airtel has rolled out a first of its kind dedicated digital platform to serve the growing connectivity communication and collaboration requirements of emerging businesses including SMEs and startups The digital platform will offer solutions buzzword to emerging enterprises to enable ease of business and faster time to market 81 Android based tablet Edit Beetel Teletech Ltd a unit of Bharti Enterprises Ltd on 18 August 2011 launched a 9 999 US 130 7 inch tablet in India based on Google Inc s Android operating system The offering is intended to capitalise on the expected demand for cheap computing devices in the world s fastest growing and second largest mobile phone market 82 International presence Edit Coverage map of Bharti Airtel across 17 countries Current operations Joint venture Minority shareholder Former operations Airtel is the third largest mobile operator in the world by subscriber base and has a commercial presence in 17 countries and the Channel Islands Its area of operations include The Indian Subcontinent Airtel India in India Airtel Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka Robi in Bangladesh Airtel Africa which operates in 14 African countries Chad Democratic Republic of the Congo Congo Gabon Kenya Madagascar Malawi Niger Nigeria Rwanda Seychelles Tanzania Uganda and Zambia The British Crown Dependencies of Jersey and Guernsey under the brand name Airtel Vodafone through a joint venture with Vodafone Airtel operates in the following countries Country Operator name Remarks Bangladesh Robi Airtel Bangladesh was merged into Robi Axiata Limited in which Bharti Airtel holds a 28 18 stake 83 Chad airtel Chad Airtel Chad is the No 1 operator with 69 market share 83 Democratic Republic of the Congo airtel DRC Airtel is the market leader with almost 5 million customers at the end of 2010 citation needed Gabon airtel Gabon Airtel Gabon has 829 000 customers and its market share stood at 61 citation needed India airtel India Airtel is the second largest mobile operator with 348 3 million customers as of May 2021 84 Kenya Airtel Kenya Airtel Kenya is the second largest operator and has 8 6 million subscribers 85 Madagascar airtel Madagascar Airtel is the market leader in Madagascar with 39 market share and 2 5 million customers 83 Malawi airtel Malawi Airtel Malawi is the market leader with a market share of 72 83 Niger airtel Niger Airtel Niger is the market leader with a 68 market share 83 Nigeria airtel Nigeria Airtel Nigeria is the third largest operator in Nigeria with a 26 92 market share and 50 2 million customers Republic of the Congo airtel Congo B Airtel Congo is the market leader with a 55 market share 83 Rwanda airtel Rwanda Airtel launched services in Rwanda on 30 March 2012 86 Seychelles airtel Seychelles Airtel is the leading comprehensive telecommunications services provider with over 55 market share of mobile market in Seychelles 87 Sri Lanka airtel Sri Lanka Airtel Sri Lanka commenced operations on 12 January 2009 It had about 1 8 million mobile customers at the end of 2010 88 Tanzania airtel Tanzania Airtel Tanzania is the market leader with a 38 market share 83 Uganda airtel Uganda Airtel Uganda stands as the No 2 operator with a market share of 38 83 Zambia airtel Zambia Airtel Zambia is the second market leader in Zambia with a 40 market share of the mobile network sector 89 Channel Islands Jersey Guernsey Airtel Vodafone Airtel operates in the Channel Islands under the brand name Airtel Vodafone in a joint venture agreement with Vodafone Jersey and Guernsey are British Crown Dependencies They are not independent countries Therefore Airtel s countries of operation are considered to be 17 Africa Edit Main article airtel Africa Airtel Nigeria headquarters in Banana Island Lagos Airtel Tanzania headquarters in Dar es Salaam Airtel Africa is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel which provides telecommunications and mobile money services in 14 countries in Africa primarily in East Central and West Africa Airtel Nigeria is the most profitable unit of Airtel Africa due to its cheap data plans in Nigeria As of March 2019 Airtel had over 99 million subscribers on the continent 90 It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index 91 On 8 June 2010 Bharti Airtel completed the purchase of mobile operations in 15 African countries from Zain a Kuwaiti operator 92 On 11 August 2010 Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire Telecom Seychelles for US 62 million 38 On 15 August 2017 Bharti Airtel and Millicom s Tigo in Ghana merged to form new company AirtelTigo 93 On 27 October 2020 Airtel announced that it planned to exit its business in Ghana and that it had entered into advanced stages of discussions for sale of shares in AirtelTigo to the Government of Ghana 94 Sale to Orange Edit On 13 January 2016 France based Orange SA and Bharti Airtel inked a deal to sell Airtel s operations in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone to Orange On 19 July 2016 Airtel completed the deal citation needed Bangladesh Edit airtel Bangladesh Ltd was a GSM based cellular operator in Bangladesh Airtel was the sixth mobile phone carrier to enter the Bangladesh market and originally launched commercial operations under the brand name Warid Telecom on 10 May 2007 Warid Telecom International LLC an Abu Dhabi based consortium sold a majority 70 stake in the company to India s Bharti Airtel Limited for US 300 million 31 On 16 November 2016 airtel Bangladesh was merged into Robi as a product brand of Robi Axiata where Robi Axiata Limited is the licensee of the Airtel brand in Bangladesh 36 Robi at present is a joint venture between Axiata Group of Malaysia Bharti Airtel of India and NTT Docomo Inc of Japan Axiata holds 68 7 controlling stake in the entity Bharti holds 25 while the remaining 6 3 is held by NTT Docomo of Japan 37 Sri Lanka Edit Main article airtel Sri Lanka Bharti Airtel Lanka Pvt Ltd is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Limited Bharti Airtel has been featured in Forbes Asia s Fab 50 list rated amongst the best performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list 2007 and voted as India s most innovative company in a survey by The Wall Street Journal citation needed Airtel Lanka commenced commercial operations of services on 13 January 2009 Granted a license in 2007 in accordance with the Sri Lanka Telecommunications Act No 25 of 1991 it is also a registered company under the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka Under the license the company provides digital mobile services to Sri Lanka This is inclusive of voice telephony voicemail data services and GSM based services All of these services are provided under the Airtel brand Channel Islands Jersey and Guernsey Edit Main article Airtel Vodafone On 1 May 2007 Jersey Airtel and Guernsey Airtel both wholly owned subsidiaries of the Bharti Group announced they would launch mobile services in the British Crown Dependency islands of Jersey and Guernsey 95 96 under the brand name Airtel Vodafone after signing an agreement with Vodafone Airtel Vodafone operates a 4G network in Jersey and Guernsey Subscriber base Edit Bharti Airtel has about 303 08 million subscribers worldwide 264 58 million in India and South Asia and 50 949 million in Africa as of December 2011 The numbers include mobile services subscribers in 19 countries and Indian Telemedia services and Digital services subscribers 97 One Network Edit One Network is a mobile phone network that allows Airtel customers to use the service in a number of countries at the same price as their home network Customers can place outgoing calls at the same rate as their local network and incoming calls are free 98 As of 2014 update the service is available in Bangladesh Burkina Faso Chad Democratic Republic of Congo Congo Brazzaville Gabon Ghana India Kenya Madagascar Niger Nigeria Rwanda Seychelles Sierra Leone Sri Lanka Tanzania Uganda and Zambia only for international roamers from Airtel Africa 99 Joint ventures and agreements EditAirtel Vodafone Edit Main article Airtel Vodafone On 1 May 2007 Jersey Airtel and Guernsey Airtel both wholly owned subsidiaries of the Bharti Group announced they would launch mobile services in the British Crown Dependency islands of Jersey and Guernsey 95 96 under the brand name Airtel Vodafone after signing an agreement with Vodafone Airtel Vodafone operates a 4G network in Jersey and Guernsey Airtel Ericsson Edit In July 2011 Bharti signed a five year agreement with Ericsson who will manage and optimize Airtel s mobile networks in Africa Ericsson will modernize and upgrade Airtel s mobile networks in Africa with the latest technology including its multi standard RBS 6000 base station As part of the modernization Ericsson will also provide technology consulting network planning amp design and network deployment Ericsson has been the managed services and network technology partner in Asian operations 100 Sponsorship EditOn 9 May 2009 Airtel signed a major deal with Manchester United As a result of the deal Airtel had the rights to broadcast the matches played by the team to its customers Bharti Airtel signed a five year deal with ESPN Star Sports to become the title sponsor of the Champions League Twenty20 cricket tournament 101 Airtel also signed a deal to be the title sponsor of the Formula One Indian Grand Prix 102 Airtel sponsored the 2018 21 FIA GT World Cup Airtel signed a deal to be the title sponsor of the I League for 2013 14 I League 103 Airtel is also the main sponsor of Airtel Super Singer and Airtel Super Singer Junior since 2006 which are currently broadcast on Vijay TV Signature tune EditThe signature tune of Airtel is composed by Indian musician A R Rahman The tune became hugely popular and is the world s most downloaded mobile music with over 150 million downloads Rahman along with Anu Malik re used the same tune in a 2004 Kannada movie Love 104 A new version of the song was released on 18 November 2010 as part of the rebranding of the company 104 105 This version was also composed by Rahman 105 Controversies EditNet neutrality debate Edit Further information Net neutrality in India In February 2014 Gopal Vittal CEO of Airtel s India operations said that companies offering free messaging apps like Skype Line and WhatsApp should be regulated similar to telecom operators 106 In August 2014 TRAI rejected a proposal from telecom companies to make messaging application firms share part of their revenue with the carriers or the government 107 In November 2014 TRAI began investigating if Airtel was implementing preferential access by offering special internet packs which allowed WhatsApp and Facebook data at rates that were lower than its standard data rates 108 The statements of Chua Sock Koong Group CEO of Singtel and also a shareholder 32 15 of Bharti Airtel share similar statements about the Anti Net Neutrality position In December 2014 Airtel changed its service terms for 2G and 3G data packs so that VoIP data was excluded from the set amount of free data A standard data charge of 4 paise 0 050 US per 10 KB for 3G service and 10 paise 0 13 US per 10 KB more than 10 000 US 130 for 1 GB for 2G service was levied on VoIP data 109 A few days later Airtel announced a separate internet pack for VoIP apps it offered 75 MB for 75 94 US with a validity of 28 days 110 The TRAI chief Rahul Khullar said that Airtel cannot be held responsible for violating net neutrality because India has no regulation that demands net neutrality 111 Airtel s move faced criticism on social networking sites like Facebook Twitter and Reddit 112 Later on 29 December 2014 Airtel announced that it would not be implementing the planned changes pointing out that there were reports that TRAI would be soon releasing a consultation paper on the issue 113 In April 2015 Airtel announced the Airtel Zero scheme Under the scheme app firms will sign a contract and Airtel will provide the apps for free to its customers 114 The reports of Flipkart an e commerce firm joining the Airtel Zero scheme drew negative response People began to give the one star rating to its app on Google Play 115 116 Following the protest Flipkart decided to pull out of Airtel Zero The e commerce giant confirmed the news in an official statement saying We will be walking away from the ongoing discussions with Airtel for their platform Airtel Zero 117 In October 2016 India s telecom regulator TRAI recommended imposing a combined penalty of 3 050 crore equivalent to 37 billion or US 470 million in 2020 on three mobile network operators Vodafone Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular for denying interconnection to Reliance Jio Infocomm Jio the latest entrant into India s telecom service 118 User privacy Edit In June 2015 a code used by the company was accused of compromising subscribers privacy 119 120 121 122 eKYC licence suspension Edit The Unique Identification Authority of India UIDAI suspended Bharti Airtel and Airtel Payments Bank Limited s licence for eKYC of Aadhar on 16 December 2017 following complaints from customers that their accounts were being opened without their consent Some even received their LPG subsidies in their Airtel Payments Bank accounts 123 Airtel app security flaw EditOn 8 December 2019 a serious security fault was detected that existed in Airtel s API The bug allowed potential threat actors to fetch sensitive user information of any Airtel subscriber 124 Shiraz Ahmed was the first to observe this security vulnerability and he released a video demonstrating a script being used to obtain information from the Airtel s mobile app s API 125 126 On his blog Ehraz concluded that such flaw can result in revealed information like first and last name gender email date of birth address subscription information device capability information for 4G 3G amp GPRS network information activation date user type prepaid or postpaid and current IMEI 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flaw in Airtel app exposes customers data fixed now The Economic Times Retrieved 16 December 2019 a b Airtel mobile app security flaw exposes personal data of 32 crore subscribers Business Today 9 December 2019 Retrieved 15 December 2019 External links Edit Media related to Bharti Airtel at Wikimedia Commons Official website Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Bharti Airtel amp oldid 1145349611, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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