In a bid to take on Reliance Infocomm, Bharti is foraying into distribution of GSM-based mobile handsets in the country.
Bharti's manufacturing arm Bharti Teletech is in talks with leading GSM handsets manufacturers including Motorola and Nokia to jointly market mobile handsets, which may also include co-branding.
Rakesh Bharti Mittal, vice-chairman and managing director, Bharti Enterprises, said: "We will finalise the deal in a couple of months. We want to get into the handsets market but we do not want to manufacture it on our own."
Reliance Infocomm had earlier indicated that it is setting up a manufacturing plant in Gujarat for producing CDMA based handsets for WLL telephony. The project was being conceived in collaboration with Korean manufacturers.
The Bharti move will enable it to not only meet cost scales for its cellular operations in 16 circles but also co-brand cellphones.
It will also enable Bharti to offer package deals to its mobile subscribers whereby the handsets could be bundled with the connection. Internationally too, a number of telecom firms are going in for co-branding of mobile handsets.
Bharti Teletech is at present manufacturing fixed line telephones under the brand name Beetel. It has already pushed 20 million phones in the market, making it the largest manufacturer of telephone instruments globally, outside China.
Export is another area that Bharti Teletech is aggressively focusing on to drive growth. The company currently exports telephones to over 25 countries covering five continents, including USA, East Europe, Middle East, and South Asia.
This year, exports have doubled to constitute about 10 per cent of total production against 5 per cent a year ago.
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