Bharti readies for a Saarc acquisition

NEW DELHI: After winning its first overseas mobile licence in Sri Lanka recently, Bharti Airtel is planning to make deeper inroads into the South Asian Association of Regional Co-operation (Saarc) region.

The company is looking at some more countries in the Saarc region for offering mobile phone services, Manoj Kohli, president, mobility, Bharti Airtel, told DNA Money on Tuesday after the announcement of the company’s third-quarter results.

Bangladesh is believed to be one market where Bharti is keen on acquiring a licence.

The existing telecom operators in that country include Orascom Telecom’s BanglaLink, Actel, the Bangladesh government-owned Tele Talk and Grameen Phone.

Recently, both Bharti and Reliance Communications had lost a bid for a second licence in Bhutan.

Last week, Bharti Airtel announced that it had received a letter of offer to run 2G and 3G mobile services in Sri Lanka. Bharti will be the fifth mobile operator in the island-nation. Bharti Global, a Bharti Enterprises subsidiary, has been operating comprehensive telecom services in Seychelles under the Airtel brand since 1998 and launched 3G services in the country recently.