Bharti Airtel buys Africa business of Zain, becomes the world's fifth largest telecom company
merisarkar news service
New Delhi, June 08, 2010
Airtel becomes the 5th largest company
Chairman of Bharti Airtel Sunil Mittal on Tuesday said that the company has set a target of 100 million subscribers and USD 5 billion revenue for the continent by 2012-13.
Bharti, which closed the USD 10.7-billion Zain deal on Tuesday, is expected to launch the Airtel brand in Africa by October this year. The company has acquired business of 15 countries out of total 17 countries in Africa where Zain has operations.
Announcing the closure of the deal, Manoj Kohli, who would be heading the Africa operations, said, "I have set myself three goals. A subscriber base of 100 million, five billion revenue in Africa and USD 2 billion EBITDA by 2012-13."
Zain currently has a subscriber base of 42 million.
On March 30, 2010, Bharti had entered the deal to acquire Zain Telecom's operations in 15 nations, excluding Sudan and Morocco. Zain has operations in 17 African countries.
The closure of the deal implies that Bharti has received approval from the governments and regulators of all the 15 nations.
This acquisition, besides giving Bharti its much-desired presence in Africa, makes it the world's fifth-largest wireless company with operations across 18 countries and a subscriber base of around 179 million.
