Word: mittal
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Time passes slowly in India, but not for Sunil Mittal. Four years ago, the 45-year-old entrepreneur was a bit player in the Indian telecommunications market, the owner of cellular franchises in Delhi and the small neighboring state of Himachal Pradesh. Total customer base: 116,000. Today, his Bharti Tele-Ventures is the largest mobile phone company on the subcontinent. Customer base: 2.5 million. He recently wrapped up a $1 billion expansion that quadrupled the size of his network in less than a year. Mittal even completed an acquisition of a competitor?from initial offer to signed contract...
...That, and timing. While the rest of the world's telecommunications companies stagger through what is being described as an industry depression?one marked by network overcapacity, crushing debt loads, stalling customer growth and desiccated stock prices?Mittal sits atop what is probably the world's last great growth market. India has more than a billion citizens, and most missed the late-1990s surge in mobile phone adoption. That means there's a near- virgin market of a billion (albeit mostly impoverished) people still waiting to join the wireless world. Now they are starting to sign up. In the last...
...While India's telecom pond is still small, Mittal, a former bicycle parts maker, has used first-mover advantage to become a big fish. Bharti has the largest market share nationally, at 28%, and his lead is widening by the day. In September, two out of three consumers joining mobile phone services chose his Airtel network, which covers an area with a potential 600 million customers?a market nearly twice the size of the U.S. He has even branched into domestic long-distance services, and this year Bharti became the first private company in India to launch an international long...
...Bharat Sanchar Nigam, is expanding its mobile network. And in December, India's powerful Ambani family, which controls Reliance Industries, India's largest private sector company, is launching a discount national cellular service. Industry experts say the market is becoming too crowded given India's relatively poor population?and Mittal is fighting on too many fronts. "He's chewed way more than he can eat," says an executive at a foreign telecom firm in New Delhi. "If I were Sunil Mittal, I'd be very nervous right...
...Mittal makes it a point never to act nervous. Colleagues describe him as a highly focused, down-to-earth workaholic. "He's not the kind of guy who will crack a joke to break the stress," says a Bharti employee. On the other hand, he doesn't have the short fuse of many type-A CEOS, either. In July, Mittal gathered 80 journalists at the rooftop ballroom of Bombay's lavish Oberoi hotel for an elaborate ceremony to mark Airtel's local launch. First, Mittal tried to light a large oil lamp with a candle, but the wicks were soaked...