26-05-2012, 05:34 PM
AIRTEL
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Airtel comes to you from Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited - a part of the biggest private integrated telecom conglomerate, Bharti Enterprises. A consortium of giants in the telecommunication business. In it's six years of pursuit of greater customer satisfaction, AirTel has redefined the business through marketing innovations, continuous technological up gradation of the network, introduction of new generation value added services and the highest standard of customer care.
Bharti is the leading cellular service provider, with an all India footprint covering all 23 telecom circles of the country. It has over 12 million satisfied customers.
Cellular telephony was introduced in India during the early 1990s. At that time, there were only two major private players, Bharti (Airtel) and Essar (Essar) and both these companies offered only post-paid services. Initially, the cellular services market registered limited growth.
Moreover, these services were mostly restricted to the metros. Other factors such as lack of awareness among people, lack of infrastructural facilities, low standard of living, and government regulations were also responsible for the slow growth of cellular phone services in India.
Although the cellular services market in India grew during the late 1990s (as the number of players increased and tariffs and handset prices came down significantly) the growth was rather marginal. This was because the cellular service providers offered only post-paid cellular services, which were still perceived to be very costly as compared to landline communications.
Following this realization, the major cellular service providers in India, launched pre-paid cellular services in the late 1990s. The main purpose of these services was to target customers from all sections of society (unlike post-paid services, which were targeted only at the premium segment).
Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of the Company has an optimum mix of Executive and Non-Executive Directors, which consists of three Executive and fifteen Non-Executive Directors.
The Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, is an Executive Director and the number of Independent Directors on the Board is 50% of the total Board strength. The independence of a Director is determined on the basis that such director does not have any material pecuniary relationship with the Company, its promoters or its management, which may affect the independence of the judgment of a Director.
The Board members possess requisite skills, experience and expertise required to take decisions, which are in the best interest of the Company.
AIRTEL BROADBAND
Bharti Televentures is the fixed line operator business of Airtel. In the recent branding exercise, all the services have been offered under the Airtel brand. Data is the next driver for growth. This is clear to the operators who have belatedly realized the implications for having a pie in all the segments of telecommunications. Hence Bharti ventured in the broadband market.
However, the main contention in the broadband market is the price offering which includes the bandwidth costs as well as the cost of laying down the copper wire. Typically, in the mentality of the profit making exercise, Airtel has so far focused only in those areas where it perceives that a huge market is present. However, I still hold that their thrust should be in smaller towns and cities where BSNL would ultimately usurp their potential customer base. It seems that their fancily paid MBAs haven’t really understood the success of BSNL who focused on the B and C class cities where it has drawn unparalleled support despite the lousy customer experiences. This is because of the absence of any other operator.
The current offerings by Airtel does not really enthuse a potential customer who is looking at sustained data transfer. It is the classic case of having something better than nothing.