Consolidated net debt of Airtel increased by 24 per cent to Rs 97,395.2 crore.
But, unlike its competitors, it did not have a comprehensive infrastructure back-end and required fresh investments.
Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile operator, on Wednesday entered into an agreement with Opera Software, under which its customers across India, Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will be able to access a customised version of the latter's internet browser on their mobiles.
The bench comprising Justices N K Sodhi and Samar Ray, had on August 11, permitted Mehra's lawyer to make both Bharti and MTN parties to the case. SAT made Bharti and MTN parties to the case, based on an application made by Mehra's lawyer Janak Dwarkadas, a source close to the development said.
Bharti Airtel is learnt to be considering a bid for South African telecom firm MTN, which has operations in over 20 countries. If successful, it will catapult the company into the league of top global telecom players.
Keen to capitalise on the growing geopolitical support from African nations after the recently concluded G20 Summit, India is working with the African Union to hold the fourth India-Africa Forum Summit later this year in Kenya's Nairobi, sources said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the mega meet along with as many as 50 African leaders, they added. First held in New Delhi in 2008, the India-Africa Forum Summit marked India's initial diplomatic efforts to seek a comprehensive partnership with the African bloc of nations as a whole, at a time when China had begun its own outreach.
Within a year of Gopal Vittal becoming the joint MD and CEO of Bharti Airtel's India operations, the company has elevated him as the MD and CEO for Bharti Airtel's operations in India and South Asia.
Bharti hopes to make Airtel the country's most-admired brand by 2010. Has it done enough to rise above the clutter?
The MTN Group, the largest mobile operator in sub-Saharan Africa, might seek a 'non-compete agreement' with Bharti Airtel, India's largest private telecom company, to bar it from entering the 21-odd markets in which the Johannesburg-listed company operates, banking sources said.
ontinuing its acquisition spree in the international market, Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said the company will acquire 100 per cent stake in Telecom Seychelles for $62 million (about Rs 288 crore).
Total revenue came in at Rs 20,422 crore for the September quarter, which was 6.2 per cent lower than Rs 21,777 crore notched in the year-ago period.
Leading telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said it has earmarked a capital expenditure of $3.1 billion (over Rs 14,000 crore) for India and other global operations in the current fiscal.
This move gives Airtel and Chinese major immense benefits.
The launch of 5G services in India turbocharged mobile download speeds here, pushing the country's ranking 72 notches higher to 47th spot in Speedtest Global Index, ahead of nations like Japan, the UK and Brazil, according to Ookla. India's speed performance has zoomed up 3.59 times since the introduction of 5G, it said dubbing the country's 5G advancement as "remarkable". In this global pecking order, India ranked not only ahead of its neighbours like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, but also some G20 countries, such as Mexico (90th), Turkey (68th), the UK (62nd), Japan (58th), Brazil (50th place), and South Africa (48th place).
Warid Telecom, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Dhabi Group, offers mobile telecom services with a user base of over 2.9 million in Bangladesh.
Bharti Airtel, nearly a third owned by Southeast Asia's top phone carrier SingTel, said it was helped by lower competition and an increase in voice call prices.
Bharti Enterprises Group CFO Sarvjit S Dhillon said there is more clarity on the regulatory front now, which is a good sign for the industry.
The telecom to look at opportunities to acquire another firm in India.
Bharti Airtel operates in 20 countries across Asia and Africa and is the world's fourth-biggest cellular carrier by customers
Under the new agreement, IBM will provide end-user services to airtel employees across Africa in French and English.
Bharti Airtel has received financing commitments of up to $2.5 billion from top Chinese banks.
The company added 10 million customers across its operations in 17 African countries in less than 12 months of having crossed 50 million subscribers.
Tata companies perform well while major firms in emerging markets do badly.
Bharti's results included its new African operations that it acquired in June from Kuwaiti telecom group Zain.
The idea is to reduce capital investments and improve profitability.
According to BSE, Bharti Airtel's revenue (on a standalone basis, excluding that from foreign operations and their subsidiaries) stood at Rs 49,919 crore (Rs 499.19 billion).
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd chairman Kuldeep Goyal has been trying to get a foothold in Africa since February this year when the government allowed the state-owned giant to pursue business opportunities in that continent. The five-month old search continues; Goyal says BSNL is looking at acquiring stakes or licences in African markets as and when they are put up for sale.
Bharti's talks with South African mobile operator MTN Group Ltd are now centered on a full takeover by the Indian operator for a combination of cash and stock, The Wall Street Journal said quoting a person familiar with the situation. The person said Bharti was considering paying as much as $20 billion in cash, said the paper. Bharti said on Tuesday it was in talks with MTN to 'combine the strengths of the two leading players from emerging markets.
Indian firms, including Tata Steel, in the past have formed SPVs to acquire foreign companies to protect local operations and also to avoid legal hindrances. The SPV may be registered in a tax-haven country, like Mauritius or Bahamas, the sources said. The move to float an SPV will help Bharti Airtel to continue being listed on Indian stock exchanges, while MTN's promoters will be given a stake in the SPV.
He was not a part of the meeting that made the decision but that has not stopped the Champions League Governing Council to quote under-fire chairman Lalit Modi while announcing on Sunday that the Twenty20 tournament would be held in South Africa this year.
Bharti Airtel will spend up to $800 million (about Rs 3,565 crore) this fiscal on setting up infrastructure network for its new acquisition Zain Africa.
The mobile data revenue at Rs 2,324 cr registered a growth of 70 per cent
Over half, or 269 NSE 500 stocks, have given over 10-fold (10x) returns in the last two decades, finds a recent report by Goldman Sachs that analysed 10 major markets across emerging and developed markets (EM/DM) that covered 6,700 stocks. The report examined '10-baggers' - stocks that have generated at least 10x total returns within a rolling 5-year period over the past two decades. Some of the prominent ones that comprise these 269 stocks in the Indian context stocks that delivered over 10x total returns over a 5-year rolling period since 2000 as per Goldman Sachs includes Westlife Foodworld, Bharti Airtel, Adani Total Gas, Patanjali Foods, Larsen & Toubro, BEML, Blue Star, Shree Cement, Lupin, Godrej Industries, Astral, Adani Enterprises, Hindustan Petroleum and Deepak Fertilisers.
'Vodafone Idea has losses running over Rs 10,000 crore in the last four quarters.' 'It has long-term debt of about Rs 1.15 trillion.' 'Even post-issue, the debt service numbers won't be good,' points out Devangshu Datta.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, bottom, left, says he is fond of Bill Gates' famous quote: "Success is a lousy teacher." Back from a long foreign business trip, the founder-chairman of Bharti Enterprises talks to Malini Bhupta and Kiran Rathee about the challenges posed by Reliance Jio and how he is determined to come out on top once again. Mittal says , today, Airtel is as ready as Jio in pure-play 4G operations.
After a five-day long visit, Apple CEO Tim Cook left India with a note that he can't wait to return to the country. The visit of Cook coincided with 25 years of the iPhone maker's presence in India. Cook arrived in India on Monday. The visit started with the launch of the first official Apple store in Mumbai on April 18 followed by a second in the national capital on April 20.
A top management leadership team from SoftBank has been coming to India in the last few days to meet the founders of start-ups and other investors, signalling the country's emergence as a pivotal market for the global investment giant. Based on current estimates, India accounts for nearly 10 per cent ($20 billion) of SoftBank's invested assets under management (AUM) globally. That makes the country its third largest market after the US and China.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Friday said it has selected global technology giant IBM to manage computing technology and services for its African business.
The Tata group's tryst with mobile services, with either CDMA or GSM technology, did not really fly, forcing it to close operations and write off losses. Now the group is back in the big game, this time straddling the telecom equipment, network and technology space in India as well as the global market. To this end, it is leveraging the opportunities that flow from 5G technology through open radio access network, or O-RAN. Recently, the Tata Sons' subsidiary Panatone Finvest acquired 43.3 per cent in Bengaluru-based telecom equipment manufacturer Tejas Network for Rs 1,850 crore and announced it would buy another 26 per cent of the voting capital through an open offer.
'If you are going to have only a handful of telecom players on whom the entire dream of Digital India rests, it's important they are financially sustainable.'
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