Bharti Airtel & China Mobile enters into a partnership for promoting 4G

Country's largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel has announced a partnership with China Mobile under which the two companies will work towards the growth of the 4G long term evolution (LTE) ecosystem and evolving mobile technology standards.

Both the firms will also work towards shaping up a joint strategy for procurement of devices that include Mifi, smart phones, data cards, LTE CPEs and USIM.

They will also work together for understanding and sharing testing and validation practices (including network equipment, features and new releases etc.) and also jointly conduct proof of concepts as well as trials. China Mobile and Airtel will also aim to bring in cost efficiencies by driving synergies in their procurement strategies, among other collaborative efforts included in this MoU agreement.

The strategic collaboration aims to bring together the largest mobile operators from the world's two largest mobile markets - China and India. China Mobile and Airtel are also among the founding members of the Global TD-LTE initiative, a Bharti statement said here.

A memorandum of understanding was signed by Xi Guohua, Chairman, China Mobile, and Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Airtel in Barcelona.

The plan is also to share relevant network as well as product knowledge, specifically related to 4G and development of relevant technical standards and inter-operability testing.

Mittal said, "India and China account for nearly third of all the mobile subscribers globally and this partnership will provide a major platform for development and deployment of 4G and future mobile technology standards as both countries enter a phase of explosive data led growth. "

Bharti Airtel has operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. The company ranks amongst the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers.

It had over 312 million customers across its operations at the end of December 2014.

China Mobile is the world largest telecom operator both in terms of customer base and revenue. As per GSM Association Intelligence report, China Mobile had over 790 million subscribers and a revenue of over 66 billion pounds at the end of the second quarter of 2014 while that of Airtel was about 8 billion pounds in the corresponding period, according to agencies.