Wireless Federation » archive for 'Airtel'
Airtel to launch iPhone 3G on Aug 22, Vodafone expected to launch on Aug 18 (India)Bharti Airtel, India’s leading mobile operator has announced that it would launch the all new Apple iPhone 3G in India on August 22 2008.
The handsets will be available to the Airtel subscribers at the Airtel’s Relationship Centres.
Whereas, Vodafone is reported to launch the iPhone 3G on August 18.
Airtel Live may be implanted in Nokia handsets (India)According to an Economic Times story, Airtel Live, the VAS application of Bharti Airtel, may be implanted in Nokia, irrespective of the customer’s mobile operator and network. “The icon will be available in all handsets and hence will remain inactive if the consumer is not using an Airtel connection. It then also serves as a huge branding tool,” Bharti Airtel’s chief marketing officer (mobility) Sanjay Gupta told ET.
Additionally, the company is also launching it’s social networking service, Airtel Mobile Campus, focusing on top 10 cities of the country.This service includes photo and video sharing, blog, bulk sms, contests and discussion forums.
Bharti Airtel’s VAS revenue contributes a 10% to its turnover.
RCOM net profit rise by 23.8% & Revenue by 24% (India)Reliance Communication (RCOM) proclaims its final results for the first three months. 5 million users were added over the quarter to take its total to 50.7 million. Also company shows net profit rise by 23.8%, attributing the strong performance to the growth in its subscriber base. Revenues also rising 24% to 53.2 billion. RCOM reiterated plans to expand and upgrade its network infrastructure, confirming it had set aside USD6 billion for the period up to March 2009. The investment will include furthering the rollout of RCOM’s GSM network, which presently extends to just eight of India’s 23 regions, to allow the cellco to better compete against rivals including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar.
RCOM shows slow quarterly profit growth (India)Reliance Comunications Ltd. reports the slowest profit growth in nine quarters after adding less profitable customers in rural areas. Anil Ambani (Billionaire) controls Reliance having slow pace in signing up the customers compare to Bharti Airtel and Vodafone. Net income rose 24 percent to 15.1 billion rupees ($355 million) in the three months ended June 30, according to Mumbai-based Reliance .They need to compete in India’s villages to bolster profit growth after the failure of MTN merger. According to the statistics, Reliance doubled the number of villages covered by its network to 600,000 in the nine months ended March 31.
Airtel with Huawei for handset bundle offer (India)Bharti Airtel joins with Huawei to come up with Handset bundle offer. Huawei’s T156 handset along with Airtel Lifetime connection will be for Rs. 1199. “This innovative offering is a great value for money proposition for our customers in the Delhi & NCR region and we are confident that this will help us consolidate our leadership position in Delhi”, said Shashi Arora, CEO.
This is available with 2 year warranty. With the follwing features in a handset:
Trai recommendations accepted on IPTV (India)The government has accepted the recommendations of broadcast tribunal Trai on Internet Protocol TV, setting the stage for faster growth of this new television channel distribution platform.
As part of the recommendations, the uplinking/downlinking norms would be amended to enable the broadcasters to provide signals to all distributors of TV channels, including IPTV service providers, once appropriate provisions are made in the policy.
IPTV segment has all the heavyweight players MTNL, BSNL, Bharti, Reliance Communications which have invested heavily in the network.
MTNL has already started the service. In the meantime, some of the service providers have experienced difficulties in getting television channels from the broadcasters at prices on which DTH service providers are getting in line with Trai’s determination of a-la-carte and bouquet prices on advisory basis.
To have a smooth flow of channels for subscribers, Trai has received a consensus from the broadcasters to adopt non-discriminatory price regime on the composition of bouquets and pricing of channels on a-la-carte and bouquets basis for IPTV services.
According to ministry official these steps should facilitate and expedite the conclusion of interconnection agreements between broadcasters and service providers to offer the services on competitive prices once appropriate provisions in policy are made by the government.
Now every Indian is mobile!Maintaining the momentum in the world’s fastest-growing mobile sevices market, Indian Mobile firms added 8.94 million users in June.Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) says that there were 286.86 million wireless users in India at the end of June, up 55 % from a year earlier.
Bharti Airtel led the signings in June with 2.55 million new customers. The company had 69.4 million mobile users at end-June.
Reliance Communications added 1.74 million wireless users to have 50.79 million subscribers begs no. 2 position.
Follwing it Vodafone Essar, controlled by Britain’s Vodafone Plc, added 1.73 million mobile customers in June, taking its total to 49.2 million.
Will MTN recommence talks with Bharti?After the breakdown of negotiations with Anil Ambani , MTN yet to decide whether there is any possibility of any alliance with Bharti Airtel.
Bharti Airtel CFO, Akhil Gupta believes that “There were always synergies between both the companies to have an alliance. That is why we went up to a certain stage of our discussion with them.”
Gupta, however, clarified that the company’s stand on the structure of the alliance has not changed.
India Bharti Airtel rode a boom in wireless Market with 34% net up Q1India’s top mobile operator, Bharti Airtel strikes 34 percent rise in quarterly profit. Sing Tel ( Southeast Asia’s top phone firm) who owned about 30% Bharti said that net profit rose to 20.25 percent under U.S. accounting rules in its fiscal first quarter ended June, from 15.12 billion a year earlier.
Bharti provides mobile services on the popular GSM platform in all of India’s 23 service areas and accounts for nearly a quarter of the country’s total mobile users. It added 7.4 million users between April and June. Shares in Bharti, India’s fourth-most valuable firm at $36.4 billion, fell 12.6 percent between April and June compared with a 14 percent drop in the main index.
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DoT to consider five 3G licenses per circle (India)According to a report, DoT which was considering only three 3G license per circle, will be now considering at least five 3G licences per circle and can be more depending upon the availability of spectrum.
The indications suggest that the release of spectrum by the defence forces may be completed within four months. Whilst policy is still being formulated for the auctions, leading mobile operator Bharti Airtel has backed plans to allow international operators to bid for the licences. Despite reservations from the Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the cellco claims that the opening of bids to non-domestic companies will promote competition.
