Bharti Airtel Limited 

(NSE: BHARTIARTL, BSE: 532454), commonly known as airtel,

is an Indian telecommunications company that operates in 19 countries across South
Asia, Africa and the Channel Islands. It operates a GSM network in all countries,
providing 2G or 3G services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel is the fifth
largest telecom operator in the world with over 207.8 million subscribers across 19
countries at the end of 2010. It is the largest cellular service provider in India, with over
152.5 million subscribers at the end of 2010.[2] Airtel is the 3rd largest in-country mobile
operator by subscriber base, behind China Mobile and China Unicom..

Airtel also offers fixed line services and broadband services. It offers its telecom
services under the Airtel brand and is headed by Sunil Bharti Mittal. Bharti Airtel is the
first Indian telecom service provider to achieve this Cisco Gold Certification. To earn
Gold Certification, Bharti Airtel had to meet rigorous standards for networking
competency, service, support and customer satisfaction set forth by Cisco.[3] The
company also provides land-line telephone services and broadband Internet access
(DSL) in over 96 cities in India. It also acts as a carrier for national and international
long distance communication services. The company has a submarine cable landing
station at Chennai, which connects the submarine cable
connecting Chennai and Singapore.

It is known for being the first mobile phone company in the world to outsource
everything except marketing and sales and finance. Its network (base stations,
microwave links, etc.) are maintained by Ericsson, Nokia Siemens
Network and Huawei.,[4] business support by IBM and transmission towers by another
company (Bharti Infratel Ltd. in India).[5] Ericsson agreed for the first time, to be paid by
the minute for installation and maintenance of their equipment rather than being paid up
front. This enabled the company to provide pan-India phone call rates of Rs. 1/minute
(U$0.02/minute). Call rates have come down much further.[6] During the last financial
year [2009-10], Bharti has roped in a strategic partner Alcatel-Lucent to manage the
network infrastructure for the Telemedia Business.
 Bharti Airtel Limited

Type Public
BSE: 532454NSE: BHARTIARTL

Industry Telecommunications

Founded 7 July 1995

Founder(s) Sunil Bharti Mittal

Headquarter New Delhi, India

s

Area served South Asian & African countries

 and the Channel Islands

Key people Sunil Bharti Mittal

(Chairman) and (MD)

Services Mobile Network

Wireless
Landline
Broadband
Satellite Television

Revenue  $9.290 billion (2010)[1]

Operating  $2.313 billion (2010)[1]

income

Profit  $2.079 billion (2010)[1]

Total assets  $15.527 billion (2010)[1]

Total equity  $9.491 billion (2010)[1]

Employees 24,501 (December 2010)[1]

Parent Bharti Enterprises (63.45%)

SingTel (32.15%)
Vodafone (4.4%)

Subsidiaries List[hide]
Bharti Hexacom
Bharti Airtel Services Limited
Bharti Infratel
Bharti Infratel Ventures Limited
(subsidiary of Bharti Infratel
Limited),
 Bharti Telemedia
Bharti Airtel (USA) Limited
Bharti Airtel (UK) Limited
Bharti Airtel (Canada) Limited
Bharti Airtel (Hong Kong) Limited
Bharti Airtel Lanka (Private)
Limited
Network i2i Limited
Bharti Airtel Holdings
(Singapore) Pte Limited
Bharti Infratel Lanka (Private)
Limited (subsidiary of Bharti
Airtel Lanka (Private) Limited)
Bharti Airtel International
(Netherlands) B.V.
Bharti International (Singapore)
Pte Ltd
Warid Telecom International
Limited
Airtel M Commerce Services
Limited
Bharti Airtel (Japan) Kabushiki
Kaisha (subsidiary of Bharti Airtel
Holdings (Singapore) Pte Ltd)
Bharti Airtel (France) SAS
(subsidiary of Bharti Airtel
Holdings (Singapore) Pte Ltd)
Bharti Airtel International
(Mauritius) Limited
Indian Ocean Telecom Limited
Telecom Seychelles Limited
Bharti Airtel Africa B.V
Website airtel.com
History

Sunil Bharti Mittal founded the Bharti Group. In 1983, Sunil Mittal was into an
agreement with Germany's Siemens to manufacture the company's push-button
telephone models for the Indian market. In 1986, Sunil Bharti Mittal incorporated Bharti
Telecom Limited (BTL) and his company became the first in India to offer push-button
telephones, establishing the basis of Bharti Enterprises. This first-mover advantage
allowed Sunil Mittal to expand his manufacturing capacity elsewhere in the
telecommunications market. By the early 1990s, Sunil Mittal had also launched the
country's first fax machines and its first cordless telephones. In 1992, Sunil Mittal won a
bid to build a cellular phone network in Delhi. In 1995, Sunil Mittal incorporated the
cellular operations as Bharti Tele-Ventures and launched service in Delhi. In 1996,
cellular service was extended to Himachal Pradesh. In 1999, Bharti Enterprises
acquired control of JT Holdings, and extended cellular operations to Karnataka and
Andhra Pradesh. In 2000, Bharti acquired control of Skycell Communications, in
Chennai. In 2001, the company acquired control of Spice Cell in Calcutta. Bharti
Enterprises went public in 2002, and the company was listed on Bombay Stock
Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India. In 2003, the cellular phone operations
were rebranded under the single Airtel brand. In 2004, Bharti acquired control of
Hexacom and entered Rajasthan. In 2005, Bharti extended its network to Andaman and
Nicobar.

In 2009, Airtel launched its first international mobile network in Sri Lanka. In 2010, Airtel
began operating in Bangladesh and 16 African countries.

Today, Airtel is the largest cellular service provider in India and fifth largest in the world.
[edit]

AWAREDS
 airtel has won the ‘Most Preferred Cellular Service Provider Brand’
award at the CNBC Awaaz Consumer Awards in Mumbai. This is 6th
year in a row that airtel has won the award in this category. This year,
the awards were based on an exhaustive consumer survey done by
The Nielsen Company. Over 3,000 consumers, spanning 19 cities and
16 states in India, rated brands across different categories to choose
brands which delivered true value for money. 

bharti airtel has received the prestigious Businessworld-FICCI-SEDF

Corporate Social Responsibility Award 2009-2010. The FICCI Socio
Economic Development Foundation (FICCI-SEDF) and Businessworld
CSR award was instituted in 1999 to recognize exemplary responsible
business practices by the Indian industry.

bharti airtel rated as India’s Best Enterprise Connectivity Provider for 2009 at the Annual
Users’ Choice Awards instituted by PC Quest. 

bharti airtel has been recognized as the Best Global Wholesale Carrier for 2009 at the
Telecoms World Awards Middle East by Terrapin. 

airtel was rated as the ‘Strongest Brand’ in the Economic Times Brand Finance Brand
Power Rating 2009. It is the only Corporate Brand to be awarded the AAA rating

Sunil Bharti Mittal conferred with the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence
in Public Administration, Academics and Management. 

airtel ranked second in the Economic Times-Brand Equity Most Trusted Brand Survey
2009.

bharti airtel ranked India’s second most valuable company, by Business Today in 2009. 

bharti airtel listed in Forbes Asia’s Fabulous 50 companies, 2009 on number sixth
position.

bharti airtel was recognized as the ‘Service Provider of the Year’ and ‘Wireless Service
Provider of the Year’ at the Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards 2009.

bharti airtel bagged the Best Carrier India Award and the Ovum Telco-Transformation
Award at the Telecom Asia Awards 2009.

bharti airtel was ranked sixth among the top 100 best performing technology companies
in the world, compiled by BusinessWeek for the year 2009. The company is placed
ahead of global technology leaders like Apple (19), Microsoft (22) and Google (37) in
this exclusive list.

Sunil Mittal received the Madras Management Association (MMA) Business Leadership
Award for 2008-09 for revolutionising Indian telecom. 

bharti airtel was selected as one of the top 10 winners of the IDC Enterprise Innovation
IT Awards 2009 across APAC region for its BSS Transformation Project.

Sunil Mittal was awarded the Global Economy Prize by The Kiel Institute (Germany). 

Sunil Mittal was conferred with the degree of Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa by the
University of Leeds, UK.

bharti airtel received the ‘Best Content Service’ Award for the airtel-IFFCO Farmer
Information Dissemination Platform at the World Communications Awards in London.

bharti airtel has been recognized as the Best Global Wholesale Carrier for 2009 at the
Telecoms World Awards Middle East. Telecoms World is one of the flagship annual
awards by Terrapin, one of the leading business media organizations for international
telecom carriers and service providers.

bharti airtel’s low cost computing device airtel Net PC was recognized by Hindustan
Times as one of the‘Top 9 Best Tech Products of 2009’.

bharti airtel has been ranked among six best performing technology companies in

the world by Business Week. bharti airtel was awarded the Most Preferred Cellular
Service Provider Award at the CNBC Awaaz Consumer Awards 2009.

bharti airtel has been awarded the NDTV Profit Business Leadership Award 2009 in
the Telecom Sector. NDTV Profit Business Leadership Awards have been instituted to
award organizational excellence. The awards promise to acknowledge the best, the
brightest and the most dynamic of Indian organizations that have emerged leaders in
their respective verticals.

bharti airtel bagged top honours in the Voice & Data 100 Survey, winning five of the
Voice & Data Telecom Awards 2009. bharti airtel was named the Top Telecom
Services Provider of the Year 2009. Manoj Kohli, CEO and Joint MD of bharti airtel,
was named the Voice & Data Telecom Person of the Year 2009. The Awards also
named bharti airtel, the Top VSAT Player 2009, the Top NLD Player 2009 and Top
Cellular Services Provider 2009.

bharti airtel has recently won multiple recognitions in the field of Information Technology
such as Spamhaus Group Whitehat Network Star, Security Strategist Award
(Technology Senate 2009), Intelligent Enterprise Award (Technology Senate 2009) &
CIO hall of fame.

Vodafone Group plc (LSE: VOD, NASDAQ: VOD) is a global telecommunications

company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.[2] It is the world's largest mobile
telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest
measured by subscribers (behind China Mobile), with around 341 million proportionate
subscribers as of November 2010.[3][4][5] It operates networks in over 30 countries and
has partner networks in over 40 additional countries.[6] It owns 45% of Verizon Wireless,
the second largest mobile telecommunications company in the United States measured
by subscribers.[7][8]

The name Vodafone comes from voice data fone, chosen by the company to "reflect
the provision of voice and data services over mobile phones".[9]

Its primary listing is on the London Stock Exchange and it is a constituent of the FTSE
100 Index. It had a market capitalisation of approximately £92 billion as of November
2010, making it the third largest company on the London Stock Exchange.[10] It has a
secondary listing on NASDAQ.

In 1980, Sir Ernest Harrison OBE, chairman of Racal Electronics plc's, the UK's largest
maker of military radio technology, agreed a deal with Lord Weinstock of General
Electric Company plc to allow Racal to access some of GEC's tactical battlefield radio
technology. Briefing the head of Racal's military radio division Gerry Whent to drive the
company into commercial mobile radio, Whent visited GE's factory in Virginia, USA in
1980.[11]

In 1982, Racal's newly formed subsidiary Racal Strategic Radio Ltd under CEO Whent,
won one of two UK cellular telephone network licences; the other going to British
Telecom[12][13] The network, known as Racal Vodafone was 80% owned by Racal,
Millicom with 15% and Hambros Technology Trust 5% respectively. Vodafone was
launched on 1 January 1985.[14] Racal Strategic Radio was renamed Racal
Telecommunications Group Limited in 1985.[13] On 29 December 1986, Racal
Electronics bought out the minority shareholders of Vodafone for GB£110 million.[15]

Under stock market pressure to realise full value for shareholders (the mobile unit was
being valued at the same amount as the whole Racal group), in September 1988, the
company was again renamed Racal Telecom, and on 26 October 1988, Racal
Electronics floated 20% of the company. The flotation valued Racal Telecom at GB£1.7
billion.[16] On 16 September 1991, Racal Telecom was demerged from Racal Electronics
as Vodafone Group.[17]

In July 1996, Vodafone acquired the two thirds of Talkland it did not already own for
£30.6 million.[18] On 19 November 1996, in a defensive move, Vodafone purchased
Peoples Phone for £77 million, a 181 store chain whose customers were
overwhelmingly using Vodafone's network.[19] In a similar move the company acquired
the 80% of Astec Communications that it did not own, a service provider with 21 stores.
[20]

In 1997, Vodafone introduced its Speechmark logo, as it is a quotation mark in a circle;

the O's in the Vodafone logotype are opening and closing quotation marks, suggesting
conversation.

On 29 June 1999, Vodafone completed its purchase of AirTouch Communications, Inc.

and changed its name to Vodafone Airtouch plc. Trading of the new company
commenced on 30 June 1999.[21] To approve the merger, Vodafone sold its 17.2% stake
in E-Plus Mobilfunk.[22] The acquisition gave Vodafone a 35% share of Mannesmann,
owner of the largest German mobile network.

On 21 September 1999, Vodafone agreed to merge its U.S. wireless assets with those
of Bell Atlantic Corp to form Verizon Wireless.[23] The merger was completed on 4 April
2000.

In November 1999, Vodafone made an unsolicited bid for Mannesmann, which was
rejected. Vodafone's interest in Mannesmann had been increased by the latter purchase
of Orange, the UK mobile operator.[24] Chris Gent would later say Mannesmann's move
into the UK broke a "gentleman's agreement" not to compete in each other's home
territory.[25] The hostile takeover provoked strong protest in Germany, and a "titanic
struggle" which saw Mannesmann resist Vodafone's efforts. However, on 3 February
2000, the Mannesmann board agreed to an increased offer of £112bn, then the largest
corporate merger ever.[25] The EU approved the merger in April 2000. The conglomerate
was subsequently broken up and all manufacturing related operations sold off.

On 28 July 2000, the Company reverted to its former name, Vodafone Group plc. In
April 2001, the first 3G voice call was made on Vodafone United Kingdom's 3G network.

Vodafone in Iaşi, Romania

A map showing Vodafone Global Enterprise' footprint.

Vodafone Operating Countries
Vodafone's partners and affiliates

In 2001, the Company acquired Eircell, the largest wireless communications company in
the Republic of Ireland, from eircom. Eircell was subsequently rebranded as Vodafone
Ireland. Vodafone then went on to acquire Japan's third-largest mobile operator J-
Phone, which had introduced camera phones first in Japan.

On 17 December 2001, Vodafone introduced the concept of "Partner Networks", by

signing TDC Mobil of Denmark. The new concept involved the introduction of Vodafone
international services to the local market, without the need of investment by Vodafone.
The concept would be used to extend the Vodafone brand and services into markets
where it does not have stakes in local operators. Vodafone services would be marketed
under the dual-brand scheme, where the Vodafone brand is added at the end of the
local brand. (i.e., TDC Mobil-Vodafone etc.)

[edit] Networks

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Vodafone Group plc

Public limited company

Type
(LSE: VOD, NASDAQ: VOD)

Industry Telecommunications

Predecessor 1983–1991 Racal Telecom

Founded 1984

Headquarters London, United Kingdom

Area served Worldwide

Sir John Bond (Chairman)

Key people
Vittorio Colao (CEO)

Fixed line and mobile

Products telephony, Internet services,
digital television

Revenue £44.47 billion (2010)[1]

Operating
£9.480 billion (2010)[1]
income

Profit £8.645 billion (2010)[1]

Total assets £156.98 billion (2010)[1]

Total equity £90.38 billion (2010)[1]

Employees 84,990 (2010)[1]

List[hide]
Vodafone Albania
Vodafone Australia
Vodafone Czech Republic
Vodafone Egypt
Vodafone Faroe Islands
Vodafone Germany
Vodafone Ghana
Vodafone Greece
Vodafone Hungary
Vodafone Iceland
Subsidiaries Vodafone Essar(India)
Vodafone Ireland
Vodafone Italy
Vodafone Malta
Vodafone Netherlands
Vodafone New Zealand
Vodafone Portugal
Vodafone Romania
Vodafone Spain
Vodafone Sweden
Vodafone Turkey
Vodafone Qatar
Vodafone United Kingdom
Website Vodafone.com