Airtel to invest Rs 60K cr in 3 yrs on network expansion

Bharti Airtel today said it will invest Rs 60,000 crore over three years on expanding networks that will help improve the quality of services.
It said that as part of 'Project leap', it will deploy over 70,000 base stations in the current fiscal, while over three years, more than 1,60,000 base stations will be put up across the country.
This proposed investment of Rs 60,000 crore is over and above Rs 1,60,000 crore the company has already invested in its active and passive network, spectrum, fiber, submarine cables and systems till date.
Bharti Airtel (India & South Asia) MD & CEO Gopal Vittal said: "Today we are excited to launch 'Project Leap' which will catapult the Airtel network to be a world class network in the coming three years.

"We are confident that this new initiative will deliver a truly differentiated customer experience and reinforce our commitment to build a future ready network."
Airtel has committed to a Rs 600 billion investment for a

three-year network transformation programme, which was initiated in the third quarter of 2015-16, while aggressive 4G rollouts and the upcoming July 2016 spectrum auctions could further compress profits.
The report said Airtel relies on subsidised data and handsets to entice price-sensitive Indian subscribers to 3G/4G.
However, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai's) ruling against zero-rated services constitutes a ban on Airtel Zero, the operator's open marketing platform that is key to its strategy of stimulating data usage by collaborating with partners and charging data fees to the application providers instead of the end user.

"This calls for a change in strategy and revenue structure in FY2017: with Airtel's partnership with Kotak Mahindra Bank winning an 'in-principle' payments bank licence in 2015, the mobile financial services market presents a significant growth opportunity that Airtel can tap," it said.
BMI said mobile value added services (VAS) are also an important component in the operator's Africa strategy and there
is still much room for Airtel Africa to develop it.
"This is necessary for Airtel Africa to both grow its revenue and stay relevant against regional competitors' - such as MTN, Vodacom, and Safaricom - enlarging VAS businesses," it added.