"We Are Planning to Invest Rs 150 Crore."

Among
the Indian telecom fraternity, he is much too young to head a company. But at
37, Sanjay Kapoor, is already the CEO of Bharti Cellular, the #1 cellular
service provider and arguably the most happening Indian Telecom Group today. A
keen and innovative mind, he has 13 years’ experience in marketing and
business operations. Earlier, as the COO of the same company he was responsible
for the launch of single number and SMS, which proved to be extremely popular
with AirTel subscribers. His focus now is on WAP. In his first ever interview
after assuming his new office, Kapoor talks to Pravin Prashant of Voice &
Data about WAP, Bharti Cellular’s expansion plans, and the future of cellular
industry in India. Excerpts.

What has been the performance of Bharti Cellular in
fiscal 1999-00.

Last fiscal was an unprecedented year as there was an addition of 68,000
subscribers, the highest so far in comparison to any fiscal. The company also
registered the highest ever profit and wiped out all the cumulative losses by
clocking a turnover of Rs 350 crore. We had a dominant market share in revenue
as well as number of subscribers.

What were the reasons for this exceptionally good
performance?

Increase in number of new subscribers, popularity of pre-paid SIM cards,
increase in airtime usage, and increase in roaming revenue with the increase in
roaming agreements within different networks in India as well as in other
countries. There has been an increase in the usage of value-added services such
as SMS services as AirTel provides around 58 SMS services. Presently, around
1,00,000 messages are communicated everyday by AirTel users.

What do you have to say with regard to WAP
investment and its acceptability in the market?

The investment will be on the application development front, i.e., hardware
and software, WAP gateway, and system

integration. Investment will be also on content aggregation and customizing the
applications so that customers can get

personalized messages for services like news, e-commerce, billing, marketing,
and Internet services. The company is looking forward for tie-ups with multiple
portals in different industry segments to give WAP initiative a head start. We
plan to go for

tie-ups with 50 such companies.

Our WAP solution will be unique in the
sense that it will provide carrier class WAP network.

How will you be enhancing your customer service
activities?

We have simplified the activation process. It has been reduced to two days.
The value-added services are now easily available. One can collect recharge
coupons from 800 outlets spread across Delhi. There are 20 outlets of AirTel
Connect where customer complaints and customer queries are being handled. We are
educating our subscribers on value added services. The billing process and the
bill delivery process have smoothened. The company is also planning to launch
its new web site by July, which will promote e-commerce and WAP.

What about expansion plans?

The company is planning to invest around Rs 150 crore for its expansion plan
till 2001. It is planning to install an Ericsson switch for enhancing the
network capacity. There will be investment on the WAP front and other value
added services.

What do you have to say about the future of cell
phone industry in India?

The industry would be growing at 50 to 60 percent without CPP being
implemented and there is a good opportunity also in the data market. The
implementation of CPP would help in increasing the cellular subscribers,
benefiting both the subscribers and operators.

With the third operator coming in, prices will come
down. The next phase of expansion will be the order of day and the second phase
of investment will begin. There will be a decrease in capital expenditure and
increase in operating expenditure for the service providers.