Bharti plans $8 bn spread, eyes 25% market

Striving to retain its leadership in the mobile telephone services market, Bharti Airtel will invest a massive $8 billion by 2010 to have a 25 per cent market share.

"By 2010, estimates are that India will have a subscriber base of 400-500 million. Bharti will strive to capture up to 125 million or 25 per cent of that market," said group Chairman Sunil Mittal.

The expansion programme assumes importance in the wake of the imminent India entry of global mobile leader Vodafone, which has acquired Hutch-Essar.

Since its inception, the company has made an investment of about Rs 36,000 crore for various services, including mobile, basic, national and international long distance, under-sea cable and broadband services.

"We are spending nearly $2 billion every year as the future (in terms of creation of infrastructure) continues to be stronger than the past... By 2010, we would have doubled the investment," he said.

"We put up about 10,000 base stations by 2005-end, another 10,000 by 2006 and this year (2007-08) we will add about 20,000," Mittal said.

Stating that Bharti has a subscriber base of 34-35 million, Mittal said that based on the annualised figure for the last quarter, revenues would be touching Rs 18,000 crore this year and could double by 2010.