Airtel appoints Madison Media for Sri Lanka

As Airtel India’s largest mobile service operator gets ready to launch in Sri Lanka it has announced the appointment of Madison Media, Sri Lanka as its Media AOR in Sri Lanka.

Madison Media is the AOR for Airtel in India and also the AOR for other Bharti group companies like Bharti AXA Life Insurance, Bharti AXA Mutual Fund, Bharti DTH and Bharti Retail.

Airtel evaluated only 2 agencies in Sri Lanka – Mindshare and Madison and chose Madison after hearing presentations from both in Sri Lanka 3 weeks ago.

Mr. Gopal Vittal, Director Marketing & Communications, Airtel, said, “Madison Media has been a strong partner and has played a part in Airtel’s success story in India and we are confident that they will extend the same strong support in Sri Lanka too and deliver all that it takes to make us succeed there.”

Says Mr. Sam Balsara, Chairman & Managing Director, Madison World, “We are delighted on hearing Airtel’s decision and are confident that the Madison Way in Media will work in Sri Lanka too. If P&G gave us a head start in Media in India, Airtel is doing that in Sri Lanka.”

Last March, Madison Media won a Valuable Partner Award from Airtel, in the Category of Marketing Support from among 5 contestants.

Airtel, rated among the best performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list 2007, was awarded last year, the license to provide 2G and 3G mobile services in Sri Lanka. The company announced its commitment to invest approximately USD 200 million in setting up and expanding its operation in the country over the next five years.
Airtel continues to be the most preferred mobile services brand, in the world's fastest growing telecom market, adding over 2 million new customers every month.

Madison Media is India’s largest independent Media group dealing with large multinational clients like P&G, Coca Cola, Cadbury and General Motors and large Indian clients like Godrej, Marico, TVS and Essel group among others, with a billing of over Rs 1300 crores in traditional Media alone excluding Outdoor.

Madison Media is a part of Madison World, which also has specialist Units in Creative, Outdoor, PR, Retail, Rural, Entertainment, Mobile and Sports, employing over 500 Communication professionals.

Amali Nanayakkara

Amali Nanayakkara

The CEO of Bharti Airtel Lanka Ltd.

Bharti Airtel, Asia’s leading integrated telecommunication service provider, appointed Amali Nanayakkara as Chief Executive Officer of Bharti Airtel Lanka Pvt. Ltd. A seasoned professional with in-depth experience in the domestic consumer industry, Amali will spearhead Airtel’s operations in Sri Lanka. This is the second senior level appointment in the organization following the recent appointment of Mr. Olof Haag as the Chairman and Country Head, Bharti Airtel Lanka Pvt. Ltd.

Commenting on Amali’s appointment, Mr. Sanjay Kapoor, President, Mobile Services, Bharti Airtel Limited said “We are delighted to have Amali on board for our operations in Sri Lanka. With her extensive experience in the consumer market, we are confident that she will play a vital role in our endeavour to provide world-class telecom services to the customers and become a leading player in the Sri Lankan market.’’

Amali comes with over two decades of experience in general management. She began her career as a management trainee at Unilever Sri Lanka in 1988 and has worked in various capacities across different functions including Personal Care and Foods Division. Amali has been credited with handling some of the most powerful household brands at Unilever that include Sunsilk, Lifebuoy, Pears, Astra, Ceylonta and Laojee. Her tenure at Unilever also included a secondment to Unilever Pakistan as Marketing Manager for its flagship brand Lux.

Prior to joining Bharti Airtel, Amali was working with Unilever Sri Lanka as Director Marketing in the Personal Care Division. A graduate from the University of Colombo, Amali is an Associate Member of the Association of Accounting Technicians of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing. During her tenure at Unilever, Amali also lead a tsunami relief project across various locations in Sri Lanka.

Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is India’s leading integrated telecom services provider with an aggregate of over 75 million customers. Bharti Airtel has been rated among the best performing companies in the world in the Business Week IT 100 list 2007.
Bharti Airtel is structured into three strategic business units - Mobile services, Broadband and Telephone (B&T) services and Enterprise services. The mobile business provides mobile and fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom circles. The B&T business provides broadband and telephone services in 94 cities.

The Enterprise services provide end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national and international long distance services to carriers. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand. Airtel’s high-speed fibre optic network currently spans over 53,000 kms covering all the major cities in the country. The company has two international landing stations in Chennai that connects two submarine cable systems - i2i to Singapore and SEA-ME-WE-4 to Europe.

Sunil Bharti Mittal

Chairman & Managing Director since October 2001

Board director since: July 1995

(1957-10-23)

Born: October 23, 1957 Rajasthan (India)

Age:50

Net Worth:US$11.8 billion (2008)

Hometown: Delhi

Married, 3 Children

Sunil Bharti Mittal is the Chairman & Managing Director of Bharti Airtel Ltd. head quartered at New Delhi, India.

Bharti Airtel, India’s leading private integrated telecom company, has been at the forefront of the telecom revolution and has transformed the telecom sector with its world-class services built on leading edge technologies. Bharti has been a pioneering force in the telecom sector and today enjoys a strong nationwide presence.

Sunil started his career at a young age of 18 after graduating from Punjab University in India and founded Bharti, with a modest capital, in the year 1976. Today, at 49 he heads a successful enterprise, amongst the top 5 in India, with a market capitalization of over US$ 40 billion and employing over 30,000 people.

Bharti has grown successfully in partnership with various leading companies of the world - Singapore Telecom, Vodafone, Warburg Pincus, British Telecom to name a few.

The other businesses in the group are consumer electronics (Beetel), life insurance with AXA of France (Bharti AXA), and a joint venture with the Rothschild group to develop Indian horticulture and export fruits and vegetables to the world (FieldFresh)

Bharti has recently entered into a JV with Wal-Mart for setting up supply chain, logistics and cash and carry to support the burgeoning retail market in India.

Sunil is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, MA, USA.

Sunil has been conferred one of the highest civilian award – Padma Bhushan.

Sunil has been conferred the degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by the G B Pant University of Agriculture & Technology.

Sunil is an Honorary Fellow of “The Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE)".

Sunil is the Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Seychelles in New Delhi, India.

Awards

Sunil has received several awards including:

• GSMA Chairman's Award 2008
• Padma Bhushan in 2007, from the President of India
• Asia Businessman of the Year, Fortune Magazine 2006
• Telecom Person of the Year, Voice & Data, 2006
• CEO of the year 2005, at the Frost and Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT awards 2006
• Best Asian Telecom CEO, Telecom Asia Awards 2005
• Best CEO, India, Institutional Investor, 2005
• Business Leader Of The Year, Economic Times, 2005
• Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2004, Ernst & Young

Airtel hopes to start operations in Sri Lanka within this calendar year!

Bharti Airtel hopes to start their operations in Sri Lankan telecom market this year!

Bharti Airtel Joint MD and CEO Manoj Kohli told reporters.

Sri Lanka's mobile operators reject Airtel claims

Sri Lanka's four mobile operators rejected claims by Airtel, India's biggest mobile operator which is to become the new mobile operator in Sri Lanka, that the industry was anti-competitive and blocking new players.

In a joint statement Dialog, Mobitel, Tigo and Hutch said, “As strong believers in competition and the resulting dividends to consumers and market growth, Sri Lanka’s mobile operators welcome additional competition.”
“It is also their aspiration that the industry would remain consistent in its focus on quantifiable and real delivery in the best interest of the consumer,” the statement said.
The response came when Airtel said that other mobile operators in Sri Lanka were not providing interconnection to Airtel ‘on the same terms as they practice among themselves,’ among other charges.
“Distractions in the form of inter-operator aspersions in particular those which are misleading can only serve to disrupt an industry which is a regional leader and can serve to undo the good work carried out by regulators and investors alike rather than enable further growth across and beyond the 50% (per-capita penetration) milestone on which the industry and Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) is focused upon with much anticipation and excitement,” the statement added.

Airtel to use Singtel expertise for 3G services rollout in Sri Lanka

Bharti Airtel will leverage the expertise of Singtel to roll out third generation services in Sri Lanka. This is because Singapore-based Asian telecom major Singtel, which owns a little over 30% in Bharti Airtel, is a major player in the 3G space as it has already third generation networks in several markets across Asia.

“We plan to launch second and third generation mobile services in the island nation by September 2008. This will be Bharti Airtel’s first ever 3G network rollout. We will use the expertise of Singtel,” Bharti Airtel’s president (mobile services) Sanjay Kapoor told “The Economic Times”.

In fact, industry watchers share the view that Bharti’s 3G launch in Lanka will also serve as a test bed for offering similar services in India when 3G spectrum is made available here.

According to Mr Kapoor, another option open to Bharti is to use the expertise of the members of the Bridge Alliance for its 3G services in Lanka. The Bridge Alliance of which both Bharti and Singtel are members, is a business alliance of eleven major mobile telecommunications companies in Asia and Australia.

The alliance is built on seamless service connectivity and a suite of integrated value-added services for all alliance members’ subscribers while roaming on each other’s networks. “Most of the Bridge members offer 3G services. We can use their expertise,” Mr Kapoor said.

More importantly, another unique advantage offered by the Bridge Alliance is that global technology powerhouses such as Ericsson, Motorola and ZTE are associate members of this organisation.

Last year, Bharti Airtel had bagged the licence to become Sri Lanka’s fifth GSM-based service provider. The company has already announced that it will invest about Rs 8000 million in Sri Lanka over the next five years to build a nation-wide mobile network in that country. However, a major portion of investment is being made now as the network is being set up.

Bharti has also awarded a Rs 6000 million contract to Chinese equipment major Huawei to its networks in Lanka. Apart from networks, this three-year deal includes telecom applications and software.

With mobile penetration of around 30% and growing at a rate of approximately 2 million mobile users per annum, Bharti is betting big on Sri Lanka. Bharti will have to compete with the Telekom Malaysia-owned Dialog Telecom (the largest operator in Sri Lanka), Tigo (owned by Luxembourg-based service provider Millicom International Cellular), Hutchison (owned by Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecommunications) and Sri Lankan government-owned Mobitel.

Bharti Airtel- Coperate profile

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel is the flagship company of Bharti Enterprises. The Bharti Group, has a diverse business portfolio and has created global brands in the telecommunication sector. Bharti has recently forayed into retail business as Bharti Retail Pvt. Ltd. under a MoU with Wal-Mart for the cash & carry business. It has successfully launched an international venture with EL Rothschild Group to export fresh agri products exclusively to markets in Europe and USA and has launched Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company Ltd under a joint venture with AXA, world leader in financial protection and wealth management.

Airtel comes to you from Bharti Airtel Limited, India’s largest integrated and the first private telecom services provider with a footprint in all the 23 telecom circles. Bharti Airtel since its inception has been at the forefront of technology and has steered the course of the telecom sector in the country with its world class products and services. The businesses at Bharti Airtel have been structured into three individual strategic business units (SBU’s) - Mobile Services, Airtel Telemedia Services & Enterprise Services. The mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom circles while the Airtel Telemedia Services business offers broadband & telephone services in 94 cities. The Enterprise services provide end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national & international long distance services to carriers. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand.