Before Airtel became the Airtel that it is right now, one of the world’s leading providers of telecommunication and mobile money services, its founder, Sunil Bharti Mittal of Bharti Enterprises, started it off as a push-button phones assembler in India to replace the old-fashioned rotary phones when technology was taking off in the 1970s and into the 80s.
Mr. Sunil Bharti became successful in his businesses, and when cellular technology had stood tall and strong in 1992, and the government of India needed to contract an operator to provide affordable mobile services to the citizens, he won that contract due to his low pricing as a criterion for receiving the license. That is how Bharti Telecoms, or Bharti Airtel, came to be in 1995.
Mainly operating as the Airtel brand headquartered in New Delhi, the company has grown to offer data, video, and voice services not only in India but also in other regions of the world, including Africa and the Middle East.
Which countries have Airtel?
Here are the countries in which Airtel operates today. It has over 490 million subscribers and is ranked among the top 3 mobile service providers around the world;
In Africa
* Kenya
* Gabon
* Chad
* Tanzania
* Congo
* Zambia
* Madagascar
* Uganda
* Seychelles
* Malawi
* Nigeria
* Ethiopia
* Niger
* Rwanda
In Asia
* India
* Sri Lanka
* Bangladesh
Others
* United Kingdom
* United States of America
* Hong Kong
* Japan
* France
* Singapore
Airtel is listed on the London and Nigerian stock exchanges.
