Professor Ford
Introduction to Asian Business
October, 18th, 2012
Bharti Airtel is a telecom company in India; so far the largest integrated Telecom Company in India. Also, it is the third largest in-country mobile network service provider, the fifth largest mobile telecom company in the world. Bharti Airtel also operates outside India, namely Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh in Asia, and in some countries in Africa. The company actively engages in its expansion into Africa, currently 20 countries included in the Airtel network. So far Airtel has about 178.6 million subscribers in India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka combined. 48.4 million subscribers in Africa.
Airtel operates in 20 countries in the world.
History
Bharti was founded as a manufacturer of bicycle parts in 1976, according to their website. They also offer services in finance, retail operations, and foods. In this paper, the focus will be their most successful and biggest operation, their mobile network service. The Airtel mobile network started its operations in 1983, beginning with an agreement with Germany’s Siemens to manufacture push-button telephone models for the Indian market. Ever since, Airtel has a unique way of operating its business. They outsource most of their operations to different companies; with the exceptions of marketing, sales and finance. Their network based operations, for instance, are maintained mainly by Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Network and Huawei, their business support by IBM, and their transmission towers by its subsidiary company called Bharti Infratel Ltd. In India. This allows Airtel to provide very low rates for calling, which is especially important in a market in which the majority of people are relatively poor, such as India. Right now 3G network is widely available in 200 cities through its own network and in 500 cities through intra-circle roaming arrangements with other operators.
Indian Market
India is the second largest country in the world according
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