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TAKEOVER OF

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE NO

1 INTRODUCTION 3

2 PROFILE 5

3 HISTORY 8

4 STRATEGY 10

5 CUSTOMER SERVICE DELIVERY 24

6 SWOT ANALYSIS 27

7 CONCLUSION 31

9 BIBLIOGRAPHY 32

INTRODUCTION

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Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as Airtel, is an Indian Multinational telecommunications services company headquartered in New Delhi, India. It operates in 20 countries across South Asia, Africa, and the Channel Islands. Airtel has a GSM network in all countries in which it operates, providing 2G, 3G and 4G services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel is the world's first largest mobile telecommunications company by subscribers, with over 275 million subscribers across 20 countries as of July 2013. It is the largest cellular service provider in India, with 192.22 million subscribers as of August 2013.

Airtel is the largest provider of mobile telephony and second largest provider of fixed telephony in India, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television 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 Cisco Gold Certification.[8] 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.

Loop Mobile, usually referred to as LOOP and formerly known as BPL Mobile, was an Indian mobile network operator. Being the country's oldest telecom service provider, Loop Mobile is the first operator in the country to offer services like MMS, GPRS and Caller Ring Tunes.[21] Other VAS include Reply-All, Roaming on Prepaid, Intelligent network, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Multimedia Messaging Service(MMS), Missed Call Alert, Caller Ring Tune, Mobile Tracker and others. In April 2012 Loop Mobile announced its intention to shut down operations across India except Mumbai with effect from 15 May 2012. The move is expected to impact 6,100 customers, however, the figure is much less than 0.01% of the number of mobile phone users in India.

On 18 February 2014, Bharti Airtel announced that it had agreed to acquire Loop Mobile for 700 crore (US$110 million), subject to regulatory and statutory

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approvals. This was the first merger in the Indian telecoms market in nearly six years. This was also the first deal to be recorded since the government had finalized a new mergers and acquisitions (M&A) policy earlier that year, although the policy had not been notified formally. The two companies had been in talks since mid-2013. Loop Mobile's 20 year license in the 900 MHz band was due to expire in the last quarter of 2014, and the company did not participate in the 2014 spectrum auction, making it impossible for the company to continue operations. Loop Mobile's 3 million subscribers were added to Airtel's 4 million subscribers in Mumbai under the agreement, taking Airtel's total customer base in Mumbai to more than 7 million, helping it surpass Vodafone as the largest operator by subscriber base in the circle, though its market share by revenue for Mumbai still lagged Vodafone..

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PROFILE OF AIRTEL AND LOOP MOBILE

Bharti Airtel Limited

Type Public company

Traded asBSE: 532454 NSE: BHARTIARTLBSE SENSEX Constituent

Industry Telecommunications

Founded 7 July 1995

Founders Sunil Bharti Mittal

HeadquartersBharti Crescent, 1, Nelson Mandela Road, New Delhi, India

Area servedIndia & South Asia, Africa, and the Channel Islands

Key peopleSunil Bharti Mittal(Chairman and MD)

ProductsFixed line and mobile telephony, broadband and fixed-line internet services, digital television and IPTV

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Website www.airtel.com

Vision and Mission of Airtel

Vision

By 2015 Airtel will be the most admired brand in India:

Loved by more customers

Targeted by top talent

Benchmarked by more businesses

To build India's finest business conglomerate by 2020

Supporting education of underprivileged children through Bharti Foundation

Strategic Intent:

To create a conglomerate of the future by bringing about “Big

Transformations through Brave Actions.”

Mission

“We at Airtel always think in fresh and innovative ways about the needs of

our customers and how we want them to feel. We deliver what we promise

and go out of our way to delight the customer with a little bit more”

We will meet global standards for telecom services that delight customers

through:

Customer Service Focus

Empowered Employees

Cost Efficiency

Unified Messaging Solutions

Innovative products and services

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Error- free service delivery

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Loop Mobile

Former type Private

Industry Telecommunication

Fate Acquired by Bharti Airtel

Founded Mumbai, Maharashtra, India (1994)

Defunct 2014

Headquarters Mahim, Mumbai, India

Area served Mumbai

Key people Sandip Basu (MD and CEO)

Services Mobile network operator

Owners Khaitan Group (99%)

Employees 550 (December 2013)

Website www.loopmobile.in

HISTORY

Sunil Bharti Mittal founded the Bharti Group. In 1983, Mittal was in an agreement with Germany's Siemens to manufacture push-button telephone models for the Indian market. In 1986, 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. By the early 1990s, Sunil Mittal had also launched the country's first fax machines and its first cordless telephones. In 1992, Mittal won a bid to build a cellular phone network in Delhi. In 2005, Bharti extended its network to Andaman and Nicobar. This expansion allowed it to offer voice servies all across India. In 2009, Airtel launched its first international mobile network in Sri Lanka. In 2010, Airtel acquired the African operations of the Kuwait-based Zain Telecom. In March 2012, Airtel launched a mobile operation in Rwanda.

BPL Mobile Communications, established in 1994, was India's first mobile network operator. It began commercial operations in 1995. The Khaitan Holdings Group took ownership control in 2005, purchasing a 99% stake in the company at a cost of  700 crore (equivalent to  13 billion or US$210 million in 2014). BPL Mobile was renamed to Loop Mobile in March 2009, following the expiry of its brand-use agreement with the TPG Nambiar owned BPL Group.

On 18 February 2014, Bharti Airtel announced that it had agreed to acquire Loop Mobile for  700 crore (US$110 million), subject to regulatory and statutory approvals. This was the first merger in the Indian telecoms market in nearly six years. This was also the first deal to be recorded since the government had finalized a new mergers and acquisitions (M&A) policy earlier that year, although the policy had not been notified formally. The two companies had been in talks since mid-2013.

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Loop Mobile's 20 year license in the 900 MHz band was due to expire in the last quarter of 2014, and the company did not participate in the 2014 spectrum auction making it impossible for the company to continue operations. Loop Mobile's 3 million subscribers were added to Airtel's 4 million subscribers in Mumbai under the agreement, taking Airtel's total customer base in Mumbai to more than 7 million, helping it surpass Vodafone as the largest operator by subscriber base in the circle, though its market share by revenue for Mumbai still lagged Vodafone. Airtel also acquired electronic equipment, optic fiber and the 8 megahertz of spectrum in the 900 MHz band held by Loop in Mumbai. However, Airtel did not acquire Loop Mobile's 550 employees.[4] The status of Loop's employees could not be immediately ascertained.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) could soon start sending out notices to Loop Mobile's customers to switch to another operator before the company's permit for Mumbai expires in November, a move which could throw a spanner in the works of Bharti Airtel's Rs700-crore deal to acquire the company.

Under the proposed deal, for which a definitive agreement was signed on June 23, Bharti Airtel is to take over Loop's nearly three million subscribers and 25,000 cell sites through what is called a slump sale — without assigning values to individual assets.

The transaction, if and when cleared by the DoT, will expand the subscriber base of Bharti Airtel, India's leading telecom operator, to seven million in the Mumbai circle and make it the biggest operator in India's financial capital as well. Although the two parties have not given out any financial details, industry observers have put the figure at Rs700 crore.

The DoT's likely move could, however, throw the financial calculations haywire. In an internal note reviewed by the paper, the DoT has proposed that Loop Mobile and the Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TERM) cell of the DoT should start notifying Loop's current subscribers that their network operator will cease to exist once the permit expires in November and they need to port out. The development comes at a time when Bharti Airtel, according to media reports, has already started making calls to Loop's subscribers asking them to gather the requisite forms which are needed for porting out.

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STRATEGY ADAPTED BY AIRTEL

Bharti has spent a considerable amount on advertising its mobile phone service, Airtel. Besides print advertising, the company had put up large no of hoardings and kiosks in and around Delhi. The objective behind designing a promotion campaign for the ‘Airtel’ services is to promote the brand awareness and to build brand preferences. Airtel money will play a transformational role in accelerating mobile based commerce in India. This will potentially change the way India transacts, especially as it provides unmatched reach and convenience. airtel money is now further extending the availability to deeper pockets of the country, to make a significant impact on the lives of millions. e.g. customers will be able to easily repay loans, contribute to pension plans, save money, send money and transact conveniently without leaving their villages. Besides, innovative cash management systems will also be available for the industry, further increasing their efficiency and effectiveness.

1. Diversification In diversification the firm cans business in new markets with new products. The strategy implied is risk oriented as the business is being launched into new markets where the firm lies inexperienced. The firm, which plans to adopt a diversification strategy, must have a clear vision about it target and a good idea of the risks involved.

According to researcher, Airtel company uses growth matrix as a tool for its their marketing strategy in India because in India the competition in telecom industry has become hard as there are many telecom industry introducing their services. Hence Airtel concentrates on market penetration and development by introducing new services like Airtel broadband, 3g services, air T.V, and national and low international roaming services and many loyalty schemes in their services which attract more customers under one brand. It also focus on product and diversification by launching new product like Blackberry IPhone and apple mobile

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under his brand name and it also shift in new market like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and etc to become multinational brand and provide different services like broadband, air TV etc under one brand Airtel.

2. Differentiation Strategy

In differentiation strategy the firm always tries to create, introduce new things and services that make the firm unique from their competitor. Companies may charge more due to this differentiation. It also leads to a loyal customer following.

3. Focus Strategy

It is most reliable for small companies but at times it is also profitable to big companies. A focus strategy should target market segments where competition is low or weakest to earn average investments and gain competitive advantage by launching their services and established their business

By researcher point of view, Airtel - new private telecom industry in India has made its marketing strategy based on focus strategy which focuses on market segment, and launched its services in those region where geographical condition are hard like J&K, Assam Arunachal Pradesh and some part of Himachal Pradesh etc. where people are not so aware to look of specific advantages. This has helped Airtel to become popular in these regions because no telecom industry provider offers their best services in this region. Airtel has also comes in news several times by choosing Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni as it mobile ambassador and by offering ready sponsorships for IPL games in India. The Ansoff Growth matrix is other formula in businesses to know their product and growth of market strategy. This tool has been developed by Igor Ansoff and was first published under heading of “Strategies for Diversification” in Harvard Business Review in 1957. It provides knowledge to an organization on how to maintain or grow their business by means of existing and new product in existing or new market. This tool offers benefits to the companies by telling what

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decision should be taken to improve current performance. This tool has four key segments as shown in figure

4. Marketing Policy

 a. Customer Segmentation

Individual businessman, entrepreneur professionals and established organizations are the main customers of Airtel. They have also a target to take students and low-income groups with their introduction of Airtel simple rate  Pre-Paid services. They target high class people by the post-paid service.  To serve the market more accurately their target market will be further segmented based on psychographics and business size.

 b. Marketing Strategies

TMIB always wants to achieve desired sales growth and customer base. Airtel wants to encourage existing customers to use more and more of their services.Their newly introduced package named “Eid Double Bonus” is one of their successful initiatives for the exiting customer It has a concept of “Customer gets Customer”

 c. Product Positioning

Initially their target was to reach the top. But others are targeting to the grass root level, and increasing their customer. Airtel wants to be the leader with good quality and is designing products for the middle class range also.

 d. Marketing Product Mix

Product

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Continuous improvement of quality. Reposition of slow moving products to different target markets. Always branding Airtel with all packages with a GSM service 

Price Necessary changes in tariff structure and changes in terms and conditions. Penetration pricing in the face of competition. Skimming policy where possible.  

Place Make effective use of distribution. Make product and service delivery system more effective and less time Consuming. Wider distributing network to make service more accessible.

Promotion Brochures with all necessary information, Press advertisements, Television, Radio, Commercials and Billboards.

5. Market Penetration

The businesses focus on selling existing products into existing markets. The three main objectives that businesses want to achieve include either outgrowing or stabilizing the current market share for the product; the target market to be out grown into should be a secure market, and bringing up faithful strategies to improve the quantity of consumers.

6. Market Development The main focus of the business is to bring the presiding products into the new market. The scheme includes:

Locating a new geological market; like export of new items to another country.

Giving more emphasis to the latest item and its promotion. Supply of new channels

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New pricing schemes to get more customers.

7. Product Development

It is one of the prime aims of businesses to bring and introduce new products in the marketplace. This strategy based on development and modification of products can get new dimension into the existing markets.

8. TARGET AUDIENCE

Prepaid Connection: Target audience is college students.

Post-paid Connection: Target audience is working people but there be secondary audiences like housewife and collge students who use this connection.

9. COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN TOOL

“Anything that allows one person to communicate to another person “ 1) Telecom sector 2) Skype 3) Mail servers 4) Social network sites

Today's youth share a 'relationship' with their families but they share their 'life' with their friends. Thus, the communication as well as the service has relevance for today's youth.

10. Segmentation

Due to diminishing marginal returns on its voice revenues, Airtel was forced to abandon its one size fits all demographic segmentation. It came up with a strategy where it classified users into different segments. Segmentation can be defined as

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the process of dividing the market into customers with similar interests into one segment.

There are basically 4 levels of segmentation and Airtel segmented its market as:

1. Segment marketing

Here the target market is divided into different segments on the basis of homogenous needs. Airtel has broadly divided the whole market into 2 categories – prepaid and postpaid.

2. Niche Marketing

It can be defined as the marketer’s effort to position their product or service in smaller markets that have similar attributes and have been neglected by other marketers. AIRTEL launched its product blackberry in this category which particularly focused on the upper business class who have to be in touch with the world every time

3. Local marketing

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In this segment companies have to focus on the requirements of the local markets to be successful. Airtel is focusing on local marketing by their low tariff plans in rural and even urban cities.

4. Individual Marketing

In this segmentation, companies focus on individual customers and try to be in touch with them by phone calls, email etc. Airtel regularly calls its every customer and tells them about its new features and schemes.

Airtel segmented its consumer market on the basis of:-

1. Geographical segmentation

The market is divided into groups based on demographic attributes such as localities, regions, cities, density etc. Airtel segments the market on the basis of states, as they have different plans for different states. The different geographic regions are handled independently and different campaigns are run according to the tastes and preferences of people in each region.

2. Demographic segmentation

The market is divided into groups based on demographic attributes like age, gender, income, occupation, religion, family life cycle etc

Age and lifecycle

Recognizing that senior citizens have the need to keep in touch with their children and relatives who may be located far away, Airtel came up with a

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senior plan which offered a discount on one STD number and one local number. Besides, subscribers of this plan could get special discounts for health check-ups and would have a facility to club bills with that of their children

Gender

The Company has also launched special packages to target the women. Airtel had started the Ladies Special plan targeted at women and allowed subscriber to receive special beauty and lifestyle tips, apart from subscriptions to cosmopolitan and housekeeping magazines. The plan also offers women the option to club the monthly bills with that of their spouses.

Income

Airtel also segmented the market on the basis of income through their corporate plans. They had started the corporate scheme on the basis of the higher usage rate and higher income persons.

Generation

Airtel had started ‘Friendz’ pre-paid connection, SMS plans and VAS like hello tunes, which was targeted towards the 15-25 year age. This includes phone to phone (P2P) recharge facility, enabling the consumer to transfer talk time and validity to any Airtel prepaid subscriber. In addition comes the introduction of ‘Hot Spot’ tariffs where Airtel Friendz customers can enjoy tariff discounts at pre-designated places within the city.

3. Psychographic segmentation

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In this segmentation, marketers segment the market on the basis of motivation, values, belief, lifestyle, personality etc

Lifestyle

Airtel focused its attention on two groups in particular.

The first group was known as "funsters" -- consumers aged between 18-35 years old, who share a common trait -- a high adoption of VAS. Airtel believes that with some targeted marketing, spending from this group can increase quite significantly. The Telco has exclusive tie-ups with application providers like Google and has identified music-on-demand as a key value proposition.

The other segment of focus is the "achievers", who are the top five percent of mobile users. While this segment isn't a high adopter of VAS, it contributes to revenues nearly 10 times that of Airtel's ARPU.

To enhance customer experience for this segment, Airtel has separate priority relationship managers. It also partnered with HTC and Blackberry to offer high end handsets catering specifically for those customers who want to be in touch with their peers or their subordinates, colleagues etc.

Personality

Airtel last year had also started life Time Validity scheme for the persons who are not financially strong and can’t afford the normal schemes.

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4. Behavioural segmentation

Organisations also divide the market on the basis of behaviour that the customer shows towards the usage of products. Various variables for segmenting market on the basis of purchase behaviour of customers are occasions, benefits, user status, user rate, loyalty etc.

Occasions

Airtel on the occasion of Independence day, introduced a recharge coupon of Rs 1947 with two years validity for its Delhi and NCR prepaid customers

Benefits

Airtel also provides various tangible and intangible benefits for its customers. Like Airtel launched various tangible benefits like validity schemes for its customers and intangible benefits like roaming, voice mail, fax mail, close user group etc.

Usage rate:

Airtel very often comes up with schemes like Get the talk time of 1111 on the recharge on 1000 i.e. getting more talk time value for which customers are paying.

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11. ADVERTISEMENT

Airtel was the first company to target specific customers and it came out with advertising its group card labeled as ‘Friendz’. In fact, until now, the market was treated as homogenous. The “Friends card” is for those who wish to restrict themselves to their group with low calling rates and some free messages.

There are many advertisement of AIRTEL with different taglines. The following are some of the different advertisement of Airtel from past till present:

1. Airtel Jingle- A.R. Rahaman

16 states, 600 million people, one service provider .

One network that connects India, like A. R Rahman moves India with his music.

TAGLINE: People who need wireless network, people who want to connect on the go, people who want to be the part of the revolution of wireless Communication.

This music went on to become the “Airtel Signature Tune”

2. Join The Dots

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“Few relation are very important, they can’t be avoided.

When relations are based on love and affections, distance is nothing and conversation is possible

- keep connected with Airtel”

TAGLINE: Special relations Son, Daughter, Wife, Husband, Mother, Father (Every Family member).

3. Communication Boundaries

“Express Yourself’ platform making the breaking of communication barriers its focal point”

“Deewarein gir jaati hain,faasle mit jaate hain,

jahan do baatein ho jaati hain(Barriers break when people talk).”

Connecting cultures, longing to communicate without any barriers the society places, making new friends, caring, unity, peace, free mindedness TAGLINE: Long distance relationship like Son/ daughter away from home, husband away from his wife for business assignment, friends separated because of careers.

4. Endless Goodbye

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“A man and his girl is never apart even after saying goodbye.”

With Airtel 3G video calls, you always stay close to your loved ones, no matter how far you are.

TAGLINE: People who always want to see and talk with each other .

5. Together Good Things Happen

The growth of Airtel is related to Shahrukh khan from its No one to someone to stardom, which is connected to 110 million fans.

Unity, togetherness, networking, Aspiration, chasing the dreams, relationships, success.

“Life is all about experience”

“You cannot be alone when 110 million people are connected with you”

TAGLINE: Aspirating People, close friends, people who loves networking, people who want to be together.

6. Har ek friend Zaroori hota hai

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Besides entertaining one and all with its catchy jingle, the ad served to position Airtel as a brand that stands for friendship, and helps one to stay in touch with all kinds of friends

TAGLINE: The late night savior, the guy who throws his house open, the ones who borrow money from you, the ones who pay for you…

- the list is endless…….

7. Jo tera hai wo mera hai

“Friendship is all about sharing”

Picturisation: vibrant, peppy, colourful and pretty much bursting with youth, and the upbeat mood of the ad is complemented by an anthem that has started creating quite a buzz on the digital space.

Relation, happiness, Youngsters, Masti, Cool factor, Memorable moments in friends.

TAGLINE: Teenagers, youngsters.

Besides this, other strategies that Airtel has adopted are:

People who have booked Airtel services have been treated to exclusive premiers of blockbuster movies. There have been educational campaigns,

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image campaigns, pre-launch advertisements, launch advertisements, congratulatory advertisements, promotional advertise-ments, attacking advertisements and tactical advertisements. Bharti Airtel, in its mobile networks, initially during the mid-late 1990s positioned itself as a brand for the elite. The high government tariff and the low awareness about mobile phones among the masses, called for such a positioning. A mobile phone was a luxury affordable only to the price insensitive customer in those days and Airtel rightly positioned themselves in this segment. Their tagline was “Power to Keep in touch” and it was a part of their motto to associate their brand with leadership and an inspirational lifestyle.

This was part of their “Leadership Series” campaign. As time progressed, in 1999-2000, the competition intensified and Essar almost caught up to Bharti Airtel. It was during this period that through surveys conducted, Airtel realized that the idea of Leadership itself was changing and also that people perceived Airtel as an efficient but cold brand. These surveys further went on to show that in the mobile network industry, customer service was of paramount importance and the existing consumer base was invaluable as more and more people brought mobile phones only on thE recommendations of friends and family.

In August 2000, Bharti launched its new “Touch Tomorrow” campaign to humanize the brand. The advertisements featured mobile users surrounded by caring family members. These ads spanned across the print, electronic and outdoor media. They aimed to capture the SEC B markets also as the mobile price and government tariff were reducing. This resulted in the creation of a huge consumer base and they changed the logo to reflect their core values of leadership, performance and dynamism. Special features like music download, SMS, GPRS were introduced at affordable prices. In 2002, Airtel again repositioned its brand to “Live Every Moment” and changed their logo. It was done to give the brand a young and international feel. Several celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar and Shah Rukh Khan were roped in as brand ambassadors. All the wireless products were replaced under the Airtel brand and the company began following a 2-tier architecture. This repositioning and new advertising changed the way the consumer felt about the brand and improved the reach.

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CUSTOMER SERVICE DELIVERY

Customer Service Delivery is one of the very essential department of the organization. It plays a very vital role in the organization. This department starts working right from the beginning when a customer applies for a connection. CSD is the department which is to sort out any kind of problem faced by the customer. The department is playing a very vital role in retaining the customers.

When a customer wishes to take a connection he/she first goes to particular outlet where a connection is available. Then the customer fills up the form and takes a connection. This department then starts its work, they send for the verification of the customer who has applied for the connection. After the verification is done the connection of the customer gets activated and the customer starts using it.

After that, if the customer wants to use other services provided by the company, the customer will either go to the outlets or call in the help desk for further query or to know about the schemes provided. All this role play is handled by the CSD department itself. We can say that this department is directly connected with the customers 24 hours.

The information’s that we receive through Value Added Service( i.e. SMS) is all done by this department itself. They always keeps the customers aware of the newly launched schemes and try to benefit the customers. To benefit a customer a company should always resolve the problems of the customers that they are facing. They also should not only resolve the problem and leave, but they should also follow up the customers from time to time and create goodwill among them.

All this is done by the CSD department very smoothly and accurately. If this department fails to perform then there will be a great chaos in the company and may fail to proceed further.

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The CSD department has three departments. They are shown below:

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CSD

CONTACT EXPERIENCE

SERVICE EXPERIENCE

ZONAL OPERATION

Call Centre, IVR(Interactive Voice Recorder), Service Recovery.

Communication, Collection, Service, Provisioning, Risk and Credit.

SWOT Analysis

Bharti Airtel is the world’s third largest mobile service provider by subscribers after China Mobile and Vodafone with over 270 million global customers. It is also India’s biggest wireless telecom operator both by subscribers and revenue. Those numbers came in at 193.5 million and Rs.113 billion ($1.8 billion) respectively after the end of latest quarter. Again, these figures are just for Airtel’s mobile services in India. The telecom also provides mobile telephony services in 20 other Asian and African countries. Given the challenging (but improving) telecom sector sentiment in India, it is worthwhile to discuss a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis for the company.

Strengths

Biggest mobile service provider in world’s second largest telecom market Mobile phone subscriptions now follow the normal population trends around the world. With about 870 million wireless subscriptions, India ranks second after China in the wireless market. Airtel has a 22.2% share of that market.

High brand equity Airtel is among India’s most visible brands omnipresent in most parts of the nation through television, print and various other forms of advertising. Celebrity endorsements and innovative advertising that understand the pulse of market are some of the assets of the Airtel brand.

Superior overall network quality and reliability Bharti Airtel (along with Vodafone) runs one of the better mobile networks’ in India. They have nationwide penetration and although there is no dearth of consumer complaints regarding dropped calls and slow data against Airtel, it still offers a higher quality telecom service experience as compared to most other telecoms.

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Weaknesses

High competition in the telecom market – Airtel, like all other service providers in India, has been adversely affected by the extreme price competition. Although the average voice call rates have gone up recently, they were as low as Rs.0.6/min. (1 cent/min.) a few years ago. The story is similar with data and 3G tariffs. As a result, the company has been reporting declining profits for many years..

Debt and finances According to their latest quarterly report, Airtel is burdened by $9.7 billion in net debt, which is a lot of money when converted to rupees. How can Airtel repay this debt is the question? Possibilities include stake and equity sale or spike in revenue. Depreciating rupee is also an issue since it results in foreign exchange losses and increases the financing cost.

Africa acquisitions and operations Airtel acquired Zain’s Africa business for $9 billion in 2010. Since then, it has struggled to turn around those operations reporting repeated losses from the continent. While the Africa operation has widened the companies’ geography, it continues to be a drag on its balance sheet.

Late adoption of 3G and advanced wireless technologies Due to various regulatory uncertainties and delayed spectrum auctions, India and Airtel were late to the 3G party. 3G services were launched by Airtel only in early 2011. The data tariffs were high, speeds were unsatisfactory and customer acceptance of 3G was slow. The company lacks nationwide 3G license with spectrum in 13 out of 22 telecom service areas. Airtel’s LTE network for mobile broadband is still confined to only 4 cities in India.

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Opportunities

Untapped voice market Despite many believing that the voice market in India is close to saturation, hundreds of millions remain without a phone. Recently, VLR (Visitor Location Register) numbers released by the regulator TRAI, showed that around 730 million out of the total 870 million are active connections. Given many people in India use multiple SIMs, it is safe to say that mobile phone penetration in the country is less than 50%. The opportunity for Airtel is huge, especially in the rural segment.

3G and data revenue – Airtel’s 3G subscribers constitute less than 5% of its total subscriber base. Apart from getting new 3G customers to join Airtel, there is immense room for growth within its existing customers. The operator should be more aggressive in marketing the benefits of high speed data access on phone. Simultaneously, it must ensure faster and consistent data speeds on its network.

Mergers and Acquisitions Unfortunately, the M&A rules in India are yet to formally declared although recent media reports have suggested that companies may be allowed to merge as long as their market share in every circle is less than 50%. Airtel with a market share of 22.2% should be good to acquire smaller telecoms to reduce competition and add subscribers and spectrum. Such acquisitions will incur huge spectrum costs, but it could be well worth it in the long term.

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Threats

Unfriendly regulatory environment The telecom industry in India has been plagued by a hostile and unstable regulatory scenario. This has adversely affected the industry sentiment and the wireless service providers. While some clarity has begun to emerge, many guidelines are far from certain. Airtel has not remained untouched from this chaos.  And this threat would continue to linger for the next few years.

Spectrum Auctions and Reframing Government of India and TRAI kept a high reserve price for 3G, BWA and the recent 1800 MHz auction. Airtel had spent Rs.123 billion ($2.7 billion per rupee to dollar conversion back then) for 3G airwaves. Since the returns are slow due to low tariffs, buying the spectrum at high price is detrimental for the telecom. Reframing 900 MHz is another terrible idea which would negatively impact Airtel’s finances, given that it will have to repurchase those airwaves to continue 2G operations.

Mobile Number Portability MNP gives the customer independence to change the service provider while retaining the number. With similar tariffs across various telecom and satisfaction with the current service provider being low, consumers are willing to jump ship. The larger incumbent operators are losing millions of customers to the newer players who attract these customers with their freebies and innovative offers.

Bharti Airtel could also be the target ofor the takeover vision by other global telecommunication that wish to move into Indian market.

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CONCLUSION

Airtel is fulfilling the needs of many people. The company should promote their product as attractively as possible. They should also maintain the market reputation they has and retain the customers. There are lot of competitors in the market, the company should face the tough competition and come out with better policies and plans.

They should always focus on achieving the targets or objectives of the company. The company has a tie up with many large organizations and which is because of their service and reputation in the market. Hence, the organization should change its policies with the changing market and maintain its position. They should try to reduce the cost.

Even though the growth of the company is stagnating in recent times, and the pressure from competitors and regulatory bodies is always on the increase, new strategies and innovations, acquisitions, penetration into international markets better schemes for customers should ensure that Airtel keeps its nose above its strong competition. The prospects of Airtel continue to remain strong because it is built around very strong fundamentals, and this growth should bevisible in the near future.

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BIBLIOGRAPHHY

The following are the sources referred to while preparing this report:

The Times Of India

Economic times

The Hindustan Times

Bharti Airtel website – http://www.airtel.in

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharti_Airtel

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_Mobile

Cisco’s Consumer Based Study on Airtel’s Rural Strategies

Business Today

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FDI in Telecom - http://ictps.blogspot.in/2012/04/fdi-in-telecom-sector-of-india-and.html

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