Abc of Abc

2005.

Strategic Outsourcing at Bharti Airtel Limited 107-003

17

Exhibit 6 Indian Telecom Competitors

Bharti competed with six major operators in the Indian market, as follows:

BSNL:

Former monopoly and still a state-owned business. The oldest telecom operator in the

country, its fixed-line operations were omnipresent. In 2003, BSNL still had a subscription

base representing 86% of the fixed-line market. It was expected that its market share in

fixed-line operations would decline to 58% by 2008 but that its market share in mobiles

would rise from 16% in 2003 to 22% by 2008. Overall, it would remain a strong player.a

MTNL:

Set up in 1986 to facilitate the upgrading of telecom services to the metropolitan centers of

Delhi and Mumbai (Bombay), this operator was partially state owned (52.25%) and ran a

fairly modern network in those cities and the surrounding regions with fixed-line services

to 4.4 million subscribers, or 12% of the Indian market, and mobile services to 500,000

customers, or 1.3% of the Indian market. Broadband services were to be introduced in

2003.b

Hutch-Essar:

Hutchinson’s Indian operations represented a joint venture between Hutchinson

Whampoa, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate, and the Essar Group, one of India’s

largest corporate houses. Hutchinson’s investment in the Indian telecom market began in

1992; its cooperation with Essar dated back to 1999.

Hutch India had limited itself to the mobile sector of the telecom market—it had no fixedline

operations. Its mobile strategy was to target the premium segment. In 2003, it was

present in 13 of the 23 circles and had 4.1 million customers, or 12% of the mobile market.

Tata:

Tata Teleservices was the telecom arm of the Tata Group. Partnering with Motorola,

Lucent, Ericsson, and ECI Telecom, Tata had 600,000 wireless customers, or just under 2%

of the mobile market in 2003. Tata also had a one-third stake in the wireless provider Idea

Cellular (see below).

Idea Cellular:...