Bharti Broadband in connectivity thrust

Bharti Broadband and Data Group, a business unit of Bharti Infotel Ltd, will be contributing around 20 per cent of the revenues of the Bharti group in the current fiscal.

The company has set out an ambitious plan in broadband connectivity, which includes the data transfer segment. Solutions for the banking sector is expected to rake in at least 20 per cent of the business unit's total revenues.

For the next one year the company has projects in hand worth Rs 150 crore, and this is only the connectivity part of it.

Rajiv Sharma, the chief executive officer of Bharti Infotel, said total broadband and data business in the country would be generating business to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore in the current year out of which Bharti's share would be around 16 per cent.

The company is planning to garner around 35 per cent of the market share in the expanding banking segment, where availability of data across a wide network is critical to the business. "This year we are focussing on public sector banks," Sharma said.

Rationalising on the need for telecom service providers to get into the broadband and data space Sharma said that the data sector provides stickiness since the contracts are usually for a long period of time, unlike the voice connectivity, which can be broken up anytime by the customer.

Data connectivity involves mission critical services, which requires a more close involvement between the parties concerned. It also leads to sustained revenues.

At present in the banking sector Bharti Infotel is working on broadband connectivity "" providing end-to-end integrated communications solutions "" for Bank of India, State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, HSBC and Citibank among others. Its closest competitors in this space are the Tatas and Reliance to some extent.

Apart from the banking space, the company is also focussing on others verticals such as information technology, telecom, services and media.