“We have gone through, I would say several near-death experiences. We have now arrived today, after three or four big crises into a very healthy shape,” Mittal said at the Amazon Sambhav Summit 2021 on Thursday.
After tough times of 2003-04 when the telco was on the verge of collapsing and the next in 2008-10, when the government issued 12 new licences giving rise to extreme competition in the industry, Airtel faced its latest crisis when Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio entered the industry in 2016.
“In 2016, the launch of Jio as one of the most powerful competitors in Indian space, free service for a year, subsidized service for another year, predatory pricing, subsidized phones, all sorts of things,” said Mittal.
He added that Jio’s entry killed nine out of 12 telecom service providers which either went bankrupt or merged with Airtel or among themselves.
“Today we are down to three private sector operators in which very clearly one operator is becoming increasingly a question mark,” he said. He was referring to the weak financial stability of cash-strapped Vodafone Idea which is the only loss-making telcos and rapidly losing customers, mainly to Airtel.
“That (Jio’s entry) test we have passed again very well. We have increased our market share, our brand loyalty, our brand index, and we are getting more customers than the competition in the last eight or nine months,” the Airtel chairman said. Airtel, with nearly 345 million users though currently trails market leader Jio which has nearly 411 million users, as per the telecom regulator’s data for January. Vodafone Idea is at No. 3 with nearly 282 million users.
Mittal added that even in the company’s toughest times in the last four-five years, it has been able to raise $12 billion due to the credibility and commitment that Airtel has fulfilled over decades.
Airtel has now added new lines of businesses, accelerated fibre-to-home distribution, data centre businesses, and has become the largest DTH operator in the country has overtaken
, he said.
“And last but not the least, our newest baby, the Airtel Payments Bank is making strides in rural areas and tier two, tier three cities, with nearly 15 million active monthly customers using our services,” Mittal said.
Mittal’s speech came a day after Bharti Airtel unveiled a new corporate structure that will see it hold all digital assets while moving the telecom businesses into a newly created unit, Airtel Ltd. The move sharpens the Sunil Mittal-led entity’s focus on digital operations and helps monetise them. The new structure will also remove telecom regulatory overhang on Airtel’s digital businesses and reduce statutory liabilities related to its mobility business.
Mittal was delivering a keynote on the subject, ‘Building Global Indian Businesses that Stand the Test of Time’ at Amazon’s summit.
He advised upcoming global businesses to look out for disruptive technological advancements in the industry, embrace technology early on in their journey, hire a smarter workforce with the latest skill sets, build credibility and most importantly maintain fiscal discipline to enable businesses to scale.
“Do ensure that your fiscal discipline is strong, you’re not extending yourself. I am not saying that you should not be ambitious. In fact, in my scheme of things, ambition always needs to be greater than resources. But equally, don’t extend yourself to a point where your day of salary payment becomes stress,” Mittal said.
