Bharti Airtel to invest $2 bn

Bharti Airtel said it plans to spend $2 billion to expand its network in the fiscal year starting April 1.

"This year, we are spending $2 billion on capital expenditure. Next year it's likely to be the same,'' Akhil Gupta, joint managing director of Bharti Airtel, told reporters today on the sidelines of a telecommunications event in New Delhi.

Bharti Airtel will expand coverage in towns and villages in a market where only about 13 per cent of 1.1 billion people own a cell phone. The New Delhi-based company has said it aims to extend services to about 5,000 towns by the year ending March 31, compared with 4,000 as of July last year.

"Almost two-thirds of our investment goes normally to wireless and out of that a significant portion is going into new coverage, specially the rural areas,'' Gupta said.

Bharti Airtel shares rose 0.9 per cent to Rs 672.85 today on the BSE. The stock surged 82 per cent in 2006, outpacing the 47 per cent gain in the Sensex.