Airtel Bharti acquired Zain’s assets in 16 African
countries in June 2010, with a subscriber base of 42 million. After entering
the African market, the company slashed mobile call rates, making competitors
to follow suit. It has also opted for an outsourcing model in Africa to
maintain low cost, similar to the one for the Indian market.
Manoj Kohli, CEO of Airtel Africa has been tasked with
cementing India’s biggest mobile company’s place in Africa’s burgeoning telecom
market. But he faces some tough competition from already established players
like South Africa’s MTN, Vodacom, and the Vodafone powered Safaricom.
Bharti has already invested about $1 billion in network
infrastructure during the current financial year, after acquiring Zain at an
enterprise valuation of $10.7 billion.
Airtel is doing well in Africa as compared with
its India operations. Airtel Africa’s ARPU was down 1 percent to $7.3 in Q2
2011-12 from $7.4 in Q2 2010-11. Average minutes of use per user have increased
by 14 percent to 128 minutes from 112 minutes.
Monthly churn of Airtel Africa has increased to 6.1
percent from 5.8 percent. Non-voice revenue as a percentage of total revenue
increased to 8.5 percent from 7.1 percent. SMS revenue as a percentage of total
revenue increased to 5.3 percent from 4.6 percent.
The company added 2,630 sites to 13,628 in Africa from
10,998, while employees decreased by 1256 to 5,115 from 6,371.
Earlier this year, Airtel Africa roped in IBM with a
10-year agreement to provide comprehensive IT solutions to its employees across
16 African countries.
With the implementation of India’s low-cost telecom model
in the African market, Airtel Africa has accumulated 50 million customers at
the end of November 2011.
Airtel Africa has done one of the largest telecom
equipment management deal with telecom gear major Nokia Siemens Networks
in the month of November. As part of the deal with Nokia
Siemens Networks, Airtel will select Serve at Once Device Management (SADM)
software to be implemented across affiliates in 16 African countries.
Bharti Airtel also sealed a contract with Ericsson, a
global mobile telecom equipment and solutions provider. The contract includes
the upgrading of 250 diesel-powered base stations in Nigeria with E-site, a new
green energy solution from Flexenclosure.
The green mobile initiative will improve operations and
minimize environmental impact. The contract serves as an agreement with Ericsson
that will be responsible for implementation and maintenance services for all
the sites.
In order to further strengthen its position in the
African market, the company signed a two-year agreement with handset maker
Samsung, under which the telecom major will have exclusive distribution rights
in 17 African countries for select Samsung products.
This agreement gives Airtel exclusive distribution rights for select Samsung
products for the initial six months after they are launched. The range of products
that Samsung will collaborate with Airtel on include smart phones, mass market
handsets, tablets, dongles and routers.
As a part of its expansion plan, Airtel plans to roll out
up to 2,200 retail stores across Africa in 2012, which will act as key retail
outlets for the Samsung portfolio.
This year, Airtel Africa has also launched 3G services
in Congo B and Airtel Money in Zambia and Kenya. To expand its footprint across
Africa, it acquired 2G and 3G licence in Rwanda.
At the end of September 30, the company employee’s
strength in Africa stood at 5,115, down 1,256 employees from the same period
last year.
According to Manoj Kohli, the challenge in the African
market is to implant their unique business model (managed service) in Africa.
It took about 8 years to do that in India and Airtel is trying to implement it
within two years, in Africa.
The entire network has gone to Airtel’s three big
partners, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Network and Huawei, while, the information
technology aspect has been given to IBM, Avaya and Comviva. In a bid to fortify
its services Airtel has roped in IBM Daksh, Tech Mahindra and Spanco to run BPO
and call centers. Airtel has transacted around 1500 employees to its partners to
establish its network completely.
Note: The selection of the CEO was done by
TelecomLead.com editorial team
By Danish Khan
editor@telecomlead.com
