If required we will take complete control of Indus Towers

Throwing light upon the transformational journey of Airtel into one of India’s giant telecom companies, Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal, said Airtel has changed a lot and moved from the old, typical telecom ways to become a much better consumer-centric company.

“Airtel doesn’t think like a telecom company anymore. Telecom companies are still not doing as well as the new native digital companies like Amazon or others in terms of customer delivery,” said Sunil Mittal at ET Business Leader of the Year award ceremony.

He also added that to survive the 2016’s tsunami, which was mainly led by Reliance Jio, “Airtel has truly exceptionally transformed itself into an institution.”

Lingering on the possibility of what the Indian telecom sector would have looked like if 2016’s wouldn’t happened, he said that some players still existed in the sector. “The chances that India would have five or six operators without the 2016 event would have been a clear possibility,” he said.

Shedding light upon the struggle of Bharti Airtel in 2003, when it faced tough competition from other telecom companies, and in 2020 when the Supreme Court announced its verdict on AGR, Sunil Mittal said that the company had to face a lot of difficulty in 2003 to face the tough competition.

“Airtel was young at that time. We came very strongly from there. We had transformational deal with IBM, Nokia, and Ericsson at that time. So, we got recognised as a trailblazer in telecommunications.”

The Bharti Airtel founder believes that the rough phase of 2008-9-10 in the telecom sector was the result of government policy. “10-12 new licences were given mindlessly, recklessly, giving the existing spectrum pools that the companies had and completely diminishing the hopes of existing telecom firms,” he added.

If required we will take complete control of Indus Towers, says Sunil Mittal
Sunil Mittal told ET that Indus Towers is a very crucial part of the telecom infrastructure and the company cannot afford to lose it. He stated that his company has already increased its stakeholding in the company to 48 per cent. “If required, we will take complete control of the company because it is necessary for us,” said Mittal.

Public listing of Airtel Payments bank
On the public listing of Airtel Payments Bank, Sunil Mittal said, “Airtel Payments Bank has got more than 56 million customers now. In FY23-24, it will start to shine.”

The company will enter into its eighth year of operation in FY24-25, and companies are supposed to get listed within ten years for shareholding readjustments, he added. For the listing of Airtel Payments Bank, Sunil Mittal, cited the importance of separation in the operation of the company. Livemint