Kapoor: Planning big

Calcutta, May 23: Bharti Airtel is betting big on the eastern region. In the last financial year, almost 48 per cent of the company’s market share came from the east.

The company had invested Rs 350 crore in Bengal during the last fiscal. It hopes to maintain this trend in the coming years. The telecom company has earmarked a capital expenditure of around $3.5 billion or Rs 12,000 crore for the year. Around 70 per cent of this will be spent on mobile services.

“We see a major growth opportunity in the eastern and northeastern region and this is reflected in our investment commitments. We expect to maintain this growth keeping in mind the industry projections of 500 million subscribers by 2010,” said Sanjay Kapoor, president, mobile services, Bharti Airtel.

The company also plans to reach out to international markets such as Bhutan. Its operations in Sri Lanka are expected to begin this year.

Bharti Airtel has 25 lakh customers in Bihar, 10 lakh in Assam, 10 lakh in Orissa and 20 lakh in Bengal, Sikkim and the Andamans. Nationally, Airtel now enjoys a 23.2 per cent market share.

On roaming charges, Kapoor said, “Charges have been reduced substantially and a further cut in roaming rates will affect the service operators.”

The company today became the first Indian operator to cross the 40million subscriber mark.

It also claimed to be the 10th telecom operator in the world to have more than 40 million subscribers in a single country. However, Kapoor feels mobile penetration in the country still has a long way to go.

“In other southeast Asian countries like Philippines the penetration is around 40 per cent while it is around 30 to 32 per cent in other countries. So, India with a mobile penetration of 15 per cent has a long way to go,” Kapoor added.