The country?s largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, announced that its subscriber base had crossed the 200 million mark, with nearly 150 million users in the domestic market, 40 million in Africa and the remaining in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The company also unveiled a new logo. Besides the logo, the company has also changed the signature Airtel tune, composed by A R Rehman.
The re-designed logo would be for the Indian as well as the overseas market. The brand launch in India will be followed by Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
The company which operates in 15 African countries under the Zain brand would launch the Airtel brand on Friday and the process would be completed by November 24. In Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, it would be completed within a month. The company also said that it would commercially launch its 3G services by the end of next month. ?We are on track to launch 3G services by the end of this year,” Bharti Airtel chairman and managing director Sunil Mittal said.
The industry hopes to see some improvement in margins as the new services will increase usage of data, he added. Bharti won spectrum (radio waves) for 3G services in 13 of the 22 circles in the auction held earlier this year.
Public sector BSNL and MTNL were the first to offer 3G services across the country.
Tata DoCoMo became the first private sector company to launch 3G services. The GSM arm of Tata Teleservices is offerring 3G services in nine circles where it has spectrum.
On the company’s new logo, Mittal said,?Today as we expand on the global stage, this new brand identity gives us the opportunity to present a single powerful and unified face to our customers, stakeholders and partners around the world?.
Although the company declined to share investment figures, it indicated that the branding exercise could cost hundreds of crores.