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| Edited By: Nivedita Mookerji |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 17, 2018, 04:41 AM IST
Bharti Airtel, which recently completed the acquisition of African operations of Kuwaiti telco, Zain, is planning a brand launch for the venture in October.
In a concall on Wednesday, the top management of Bharti said that the company was targeting October for the brand launch, and that quality network and service centres have to be put in place across all 15 African operations before that.
The Zain operations in these African countries are expected to be branded as ‘Airtel’.
Pointing out that the management takeover of Zain in 15 African operations was complete, deputy group CEO and managing director of Bharti Enterprises Akhil Gupta said, “we are now firmly in the driver’s seat.”
Meanwhile, Manoj Kohli, who’s heading the merged entity, with its headquarter in Nairobi, said that the company would do a brand launch in October and that the capex plan for the first year of operation, ending March 2011, is around $800 million.
The company refused to divulge information on the estimated expenditure for branding. It is yet to be worked out, Kohli said.
Elaborating on the strategy that the company would adopt in the African market, Kohli said that the focus would be on increasing the revenue and the market share across all operations. Also, the idea is to make it a leaner operation, which is expected to result in economies of scale.
Bharti had announced the closure of the $9-billion Zain deal last month. With that, Bharti became the fifth largest wireless telco in the world in terms of subscriber numbers, after China Mobile, Vodafone, Telefonica and American Movil. The Bharti (plus Zain) base stands at over 180 million.
