Bharti

Bharti Airtel crosses the 50 million customer mark

• ● Enters into the league of the world’s top telecom companies, moves towards top 5 global mobile companies
• ● Adds last 25 Million in just 14 months, accelerates towards the 100 million customer mark
• ● Rapidly expands network, to roll out across all census towns and over 5,00,000 villages – covering over 95% of the population.

New Delhi, October 1, 2007: Bharti Airtel, India’s leading telecommunication services provider, today announced that it had crossed the 50 million customer mark. With this, Bharti Airtel has achieved the distinction of becoming the fastest private telecom company in world to achieve this landmark in a single country - within 143 months of start of operations. The 50 million customer base covers mobile as well as broadband & telephone customers.

Commenting on this major global landmark, Mr. Akhil Gupta, Joint Managing Director, Bharti Airtel said, “We are delighted to have achieved this major landmark, which puts Bharti Airtel amongst the top telecom companies in the world. It underlines the strength of our unique business model and our vision to provide affordable services like lifetime prepaid to customers across the length and breadth of the country. I would like to thank our partners for having shared our vision. This milestone highlights the emergence of India as one of the top telecom markets in the world and we are proud to have been at the forefront of this growth. Going forward, we believe this growth momentum will remain intact and we are gearing towards the 100 million customers mark.”

Bharti Airtel crossed the 10 million customer mark in November 2004. In July last year, it crossed the 25 million customer mark. The company added the next 25 million customers in just 14 months. This is amongst the fastest rate of customer additions by any telecom company in the world.

Mr. Manoj Kohli, President & CEO, Bharti Airtel added, “This is a very proud moment for us and I would like to thank our 50 million customers for believing in Airtel. It is a tribute to our commitment to provide best-in-class services to our customers and lead the market with exciting innovations. We are committed to create a world-class organisation and benchmark it with the best in the world. As the market gets ready for the next wave of growth, we are committed to expanding our telecom networks wider and deeper across the country and partner India’s growth story.”

In the mobile business, Bharti Airtel plans to make considerable investments in Network expansion to establish presence in all census towns and over 500,000 villages across India by 2010, thereby covering 95% of the country’s total population. The company’s strategic focus will be on further strengthening the Airtel brand through best-in-class customer service, which is backed by wide national distribution.

In the Enterprise business, Bharti Airtel will invest substantially in the long distance business to achieve the scale of a global carrier within next 2-3 years. It is also strengthening the corporate business towards becoming a preferred managed services partner for the top 2000 corporations. In Broadband & Telephone SBU, Bharti Airtel will initiate large-scale deployments of broadband network infrastructure in 94 towns, with a sharp focus on the home and SME segments. It is readying to offer triple play to its customers with the launch of its IPTV service. The company is also looking at commencing national DTH operations by the end of the current fiscal.

About Bharti Airtel Limited:

Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is India’s leading integrated telecom services provider with an aggregate of 50 million customers. Bharti Airtel has been rated among the best performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list 2007.

Bharti Airtel is structured into three strategic business units - Mobile services, Broadband & Telephone (B&T) services and Enterprise services. The mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom circles. The B&T business provides broadband & telephone services in 94 cities. The Enterprise services provide end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national & international long distance services to carriers. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand. Airtel’s high-speed optic fibre network currently spans over 53,000 kms covering all the major cities in the country. The company has two international landing stations in Chennai that connects two submarine cable systems - i2i to Singapore and SEA-ME-WE-4 to Europe. For more information, visit http://www.bhartiairtel.in/