The Hindu Business Line : ‘Growth of 8 m phones per month is sustainable’

Hyderabad, Dec. 28 The current addition of over 8 million cellular phone connections a month in India, which far outpaces monthly numbers in China, is sustainable during 2008, according to Mr Manoj Kohli, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bharti Airtel.

“While China is adding about 5-6 million a month, a growth of about 8 million in India is quite heartening. However, what is important is that there are indications that this growth will continue in a country with largely under-penetrated rural markets. It would take a lot of efforts for some more years to actually catch up with China,” he said.

“Bharti is investing $3.3 billion during 2007-2008 and of this 70 per cent was allocated for mobile industry,” Mr Kohli said.

On a visit to Hyderabad, Mr Kohli interacted with people in rural areas, for a direct, personal assessment of the market.

During interaction with Mr Kohli, he provided some insights into the sector and Bharti’s plan to be an integrated player. “We welcome competition as it is like wind in sail,” he said.

HIGHEST TAXES

On proposal to charge spectrum, he said that already the burden of taxes is highest in the Indian telecom sector with customers actually paying up to 25-30 per cent and he actually does not know. “Telecom is a utility service. We believe that the burden of taxes should come down and this could be passed on to customer. We have already appealed to the Government, and the tax through Section 80 C in the last two years has come down, and expect Sunset of this provision by March 2008. We could then pass it to customer. Likewise, the Access Deficit Charge would also be brought down,” he said.

Rural focus

“We are investing significantly in optic fibre cable alongside sharing towers through Indus – the new venture of Bharti, Vodafone and Idea. For us rural market would be the biggest thrust area. Airtel has thus far covered about 3 lakh villages of the 6 lakh villages and believes that there is huge market to be tapped in there,” he said.

“To meet the demanding needs of the rural market, we have tied up with a Chinese manufacturer for sub Rs 1,000 handsets and also with Nokia for other categories,” Mr Kohli said.

Network expansion

Alongside the focus on growth of rural markets, Bharti is set to play a much larger role in expanding the broadband network in the country to serve the demanding youth and enterprise business.

Referring to the direct to home services, Mr Kohli said Bharti is set to launch these services in March 2008 under the Airtel brand and Internet Protocol TV in the National Capital Region.

Subscriber base

The subscriber base for Airtel has now crossed the 5-million mark in Andhra Pradesh and the company is virtually adding two towns a day. Andhra Pradesh is one of the fastest growing markets for Airtel and the company expects to tap into new markets by expanding the network of towers to about 5,000 by the fiscal-end.

The company is present in 1,500 towns and 15,000 villages and covers 80 per cent of the State population and 50 per cent of geography.

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