Bharti Group on Thursday said it plans to invest about $3 billion for expanding its telecom operations in this fiscal.
According to Mr Manik Jhangiani, Group CFO, Bharti Enterprises, the telecom company has earmarked $1.5 billion for its businesses in India and South-Asia and another $1 billion for Africa. Investments in the tower business have been pegged at $400 million.
The investments in India will primarily be used to expand Airtel's 3G network. So far, the operator has rolled out 3G services in 43 cities, which will be ramped up to 500 towns by the end of the fiscal.
In Africa, Airtel is looking to re-launch 3G services in seven countries and launch greenfield services in three countries including Kenya, Congo and Sierra Leone. In addition, the company is looking to acquire a 3G mobile licence in Madagascar.
Bharti Airtel, which declared a 31 per cent decline in its fourth quarter net profits, is also spinning off the tower infrastructure of its Africa operations in order to unlock value. The Indian operator acquired the African operations, spanning 16 nations from Kuwait's Zain Telecom in June 2010 for $10.7 billion.
Consolidating tower biz
Bharti is separating the tower businesses in all the 16 African countries and will consolidate them under one overseas company. The company had earlier spun off its tower infrastructure in India into a separate entity called Bharti Infratel. Bharti Infratel has 32,792 towers in 11 circles. It also has 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers — the joint venture company with Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular. All the tower infrastructure assets, including those in Africa, are likely to be consolidated under Bharti Infratel.