Bharti Targets 25 mn Customer Base

As Bharti released its annual results showing a first time annual net profit of Rs 619 crore for the financial year 2004, it also revealed its plans of increasing its customer base from a present 7.14 million subscribers to 25 million by the end of year 2008.

"As Indian mobile tariffs are the lowest in the world, between 1.5 million and 1.9 million people sign up for mobile services in India each month. If the market continues to grow like this than by the end of 2008 overall customer base would cross 100 million mark and we would easily have 25 percent of that as our customers," informed group chairman and MD at Bharti Sunil Bharti

Mittal.

Bharti's customer base of 7.14 million is predominantly dominated by cellular segment at 6.5 million, the rest being fixed line subscribers. "We added more than one million customers in the last quarter and this is quite an achievement considering the length and breadth of this country," he added.

The company's bullishness on increasing its customer base is marked by its aggressiveness in moving towards unexplored areas and new geographies within India. "New areas like the North-East and Jammu & Kashmir are shaping up pretty well and in addition to that we would also venture into other geographies and circles within India. Certainly this will increase our customer base," Mittal explained.

The company is expanding rapidly to cover the entire country. It recently bought Hexacom India Ltd for Rs 430 cr. It also plans to spend Rs 2,500 crore to Rs 3,000 crore till March 2005 on networks to take on its arch rivals Reliance and BSNL. 

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