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Mr Sunil Mittal, Group Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Tele-Ventures, comes back to his chair after delivering a speech on `Building institution in Asia' at the Leadership Summit in Indian School of Business in Hyderabad on Thursday. Mr. Asish Dhawan, Senior Managing Director, Chrys Capital and Ms Lalitha Gupte, Joint Managing Director, ICICI Bank applaud. -- A. Roy Chowdhury

Hyderabad , Dec.12

THE telecom sector has grown beyond expectations and projections made early this year.

"The cellular subscriber base is set to cross the 36-million mark, and if the current trend is any indication of the latent potential of the sector, we are on course to achieving 100 million subscriber base within the next two years," according to the Group Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Tele-Ventures, Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal, speaking on the sidelines of the Indian School of Business here on Friday. Mr Mittal said, "the growth of over 100 per cent witnessed this year is expected to continue next year. I am certain that the industry will witness a three-digit growth next year as well."

"After some delays, most of the regulatory concerns have been put behind and from the next financial year, we expect to see a much faster growth in the domestic market," Mr Mittal said.

The growth witnessed in India is something many industry players also did not imagine. A combination of regulatory changes and lower tariffs has fuelled this rapid growth. With this, India had emerged as the most exciting telecom market in the world, he said.

The recent announcement with regard to permission for intra-circle mergers augured well for the industry. "We expect a notification on this aspect soon from the Department of Telecom. This will generate a lot of interest in intra-circle mergers. And, by March 2004, you would hear a lot on this front including from the Bharti group," he said.

Bharti has acquired licence under the unified licence regime for six circles. "This will enable us to provide fixed line services while expanding our cellular services. As a group, we are looking at offering fixed line services in top 15 cities in the country. The work on this initiative has commenced and by next fiscal the roll out of fixed line services will begin," Mr Mittal said.

"The intra-circle mergers are set to change the telecom sector profile. We are eyeing acquisitions across the country," he said.

When asked to specify if talks were on for mergers and acquisitions, Mr Mittal said the acquisitions could cover anything and everything in the sector.

On the issue of drop in revenues even as customer base expanded substantially, Mr Mittal said it was true that the revenue had not grown in line with the customer base. "If we double the customer base, it is seen that the revenues actually will grow by about 75 per cent. That is fine."

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Cell base to cross 100 m in 2 years: Sunil Mittal

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