50 Facts About Airtel

Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as Airtel, is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi.

Currently, Airtel provides 4G and 4G+ services all over India and 5G service in selected cities.

Airtel had rolled out its VoLTE technology across all Indian telecom circles.

Airtel was named India's 2nd most valuable brand in the first ever Brandz ranking by Millward Brown and WPP plc.

Airtel is credited with pioneering the business strategy of outsourcing all of its business operations except marketing, sales and finance and building the 'minutes factory' model of low cost and high volumes.

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Airtel's equipment is provided and maintained by Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia Networks whereas IT support is provided by Amdocs.

Airtel was one of the first Indian entrepreneurs to identify the mobile telecom business as a major growth area.

Airtel's plans were finally approved by the Government in 1994 and he launched services in Delhi in 1995, when Bharti Cellular Limited was formed to offer cellular services under the brand name AirTel.

Airtel launched "Hello Tunes", a caller ring back tone service, in July 2004 becoming the first operator in India to do so.

In May 2008, it emerged that Airtel was exploring the possibility of buying the MTN Group, a South Africa-based telecommunications company with coverage in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East.

In May 2009, Bharti Airtel again confirmed that it was in talks with MTN and the companies agreed to discuss the potential transaction exclusively by 31 July 2009.

Later, Bharti Airtel awarded the three-year contract to Alcatel-Lucent for setting up an Internet Protocol access network across the country.

In 2009, Airtel launched its first international mobile network in Sri Lanka.

On 18 November 2010, Airtel rebranded itself in India in the first phase of a global rebranding strategy.

Airtel unveiled a new logo with 'airtel' written in lower case.

In May 2008, it emerged that Airtel was exploring the possibility of buying the MTN Group, a South Africa-based telecommunications company with operations in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East.

In May 2009, Airtel confirmed that it was again in talks with MTN and both companies agreed to discuss the potential transaction exclusively by 31 July 2009.

Airtel said "Bharti Airtel Ltd is pleased to announce that it has renewed its effort for a significant partnership with MTN Group".

Bharti Airtel Limited took management control of the company and its board, and rebranded the company's services under its own "airtel" brand from 20 December 2010.

On 18 October 2013, Airtel announced that it had acquired 100 percent equity shares of WBSPL for an undisclosed sum, making it a wholly owned subsidiary.

Airtel purchased Augere Wireless Broadband India Private Limited, a company that owned 4G spectrum in the Chhattisgarh-Madhya Pradesh circle for an undisclosed sum in December 2015.

On 16 February 2017, Airtel announced that the merger of Augere Wireless into Bharti Airtel Limited had been completed.

On 2 January 2017, The Economic Times reported that Airtel had entered into discussions with Telenor India to acquire the latter.

On 23 February 2017, Airtel announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Telenor.

Bharti Airtel announced on 12 December 2017 that its Rwandan subsidiary had signed an agreement with Millicom to acquire complete control of the latter's Rwandan subsidiary which operates under the brand name of Tigo Rwanda.

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In October 2017, Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire the consumer mobile businesses of Tata Teleservices, Tata Docomo and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd, in a debt-free cash-free deal.

On 29 August 2018, Bharti Airtel got its shareholders' approval for the merger proposal with Tata Teleservices.

Airtel will absorb the Tata Sons-owned telco's consumer mobile operations in 19 circles across India—17 under Tata Teleservices and two under Tata Teleservices Ltd.

Airtel will add about 13 million of Tata Tele's mobile subscribers as of April 2019 to its nearly 322 million users.

In February 2022, Bharti Airtel announced that it has acquired a strategic stake in a blockchain startup Aqilliz via its "Airtel Startup Accelerator Program".

Airtel India is the second largest provider of mobile telephony after Jio and the second largest provider of fixed telephony in India and is a provider of broadband and subscription television services.

Airtel provides broadband internet access through DSL, internet leased lines and MPLS solutions, as well as IPTV and fixed line telephone services.

Airtel provides both capped as well as unlimited download plans.

Airtel is the third- largest mobile operator in the world by subscriber base and has a commercial presence in 17 countries and the Channel Islands.

Airtel Africa is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, which provides telecommunications and mobile money services in 14 countries in Africa, primarily in East, Central, and West Africa.

Airtel Nigeria is the most profitable unit of Airtel Africa, due to its cheap data plans in Nigeria.

On 8 June 2010, Bharti Airtel completed the purchase of mobile operations in 15 African countries from Zain, a Kuwaiti operator.

On 13 January 2016, France-based Orange SA and Bharti Airtel inked a deal to sell Airtel's operations in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone to Orange.

Airtel was the sixth mobile phone carrier to enter the Bangladesh market, and originally launched commercial operations under the brand name "Warid Telecom" on 10 May 2007.

Bharti Airtel Lanka Ltd is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Limited.

Bharti Airtel has been featured in Forbes Asia's Fab 50 list, rated amongst the best-performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list 2007, and voted as India's most innovative company in a survey by The Wall Street Journal.

Airtel Lanka commenced commercial operations of services on 13 January 2009.

Bharti Airtel signed a five-year deal with ESPN Star Sports to become the title sponsor of the Champions League Twenty20 cricket tournament.

Airtel signed a deal to be the title sponsor of the Formula One Indian Grand Prix.

In November 2014, TRAI began investigating if Airtel was implementing preferential access by offering special internet packs which allowed WhatsApp and Facebook data at rates that were lower than its standard data rates.

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In December 2014, Airtel changed its service terms for 2G and 3G data packs so that VoIP data was excluded from the set amount of free data.

The TRAI chief Rahul Khullar said that Airtel cannot be held responsible for violating net neutrality because India has no regulation that demands net neutrality.

Airtel's move faced criticism on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.

Later on 29 December 2014, Airtel announced that it would not be implementing the planned changes, pointing out that there were reports that TRAI would be soon releasing a consultation paper on the issue.

Airtel acknowledged the issue and it was fixed shortly after, it is yet to confirm whether there was an actual data breach or not.