Airtel set to launch operations in Lanka
Indian Telecom giant Bharti Airtel is looking to establish itself as
a major player in the Island nation’s mobile telephony space as it
prepares to launch its US$ 200 million operation here early next year.
Mobile penetration in Sri Lanka is pegged at around 30 per cent, with
approximately 2 million mobile users being added each year.
“The Airtel philosophy is to stay beside the consumer and strive to
find fresh and innovative ways to add value to their lives”, CEO of
Airtel Sri Lanka Amali Nanayakkara said.
Bharti Airtel Lanka Private Limited, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel
Limited, has already announced plans to launch 2G and 3G services in Sri
Lanka by the end of the current financial year (2007-08).
Bharti Airtel has already signed a US$ 150 million deal with China’s
Huawei Technologies to set up a mobile phone network in Sri Lanka.
“We see substantial growth in Sri Lanka, where the current mobile
phone subscriber base is over six million users,” Bharti Airtel’s
Executive Director Sanjay Nandrajog had said here last month. Bharti
plans to roll out the network in Sri Lanka over the next three years,
covering 70 per cent of the tropical island, where it sees substantial
room for growth.
Sri Lanka is estimated to have about 7.3 million fixed-line and
mobile phone users. About 60 per cent of Sri Lanka’s mobile market is
controlled by Dialog Telekom, a unit of Telecom Malaysia. The rest is
shared between Mobitel, a unit of Sri Lanka Telecom, Tigo, part of
Millicom International Cellular, and Hutchison Telecom. |