Airtel pins hopes on rural market for growth

Bharti Airtel, the nation's largest mobile operator, hopes the rural people, youth and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to be its key growth drivers in Orissa.

While the tele-density in the urban areas has increased tremendously, there is vast scope for growth in the rural market, a senior executive of the company said here.

“We will focus on the rural market as the tele-density in the urban areas has increased significantly. Youth and the SME segment are expected to be the other major contributor to growth in Orissa” Deepak Srivastav, Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Orissa, West Bengal and Kolkata, Bhartai Airtel said.

Talking to the media, he said, of the 3.7 million customer of the company in the state, about 80 percent are rural based. So the company, which enjoys 36 per cent market share in Orissa, now focusing on these areas.

Srivastav said, Airtel is empowering the customers to choose for himself any plan whenever and wherever he wants. The recent launch of the ‘Freedom Plan’ where customers will be charged 1 paise per second for all local and STD calls to Airtel numbers and 1.20 paise per second for local and STD calls to other network, will make the company more competitive.

“As the leader in the telecom industry of the country, we are committed to delight our customers through superior network, great customer service and best value for money. Today, our network covers 110 million customers in the country”, he added.

It has covered about 35,000 villages across Orissa with almost all the census towns being covered under its service. The company has more than 2800 Base Transmission Stations (BTS) in the state.