India’s top mobile phone firm Bharti Airtel said Friday it had picked US computer giant IBM to supply information technology services to drive modernisation of its new African operations.
Bharti Airtel, the world’s fifth-largest mobile phone company, completed in June the purchase of Kuwait-based Zain’s African cellular assets at a cost of $10.7 billion.
The decade-long tie-up will allow Bharti Airtel to “deliver innovative and affordable 2G and 3G mobile services across the (African) continent,” the New Delhi-based company said in a statement.
Under the agreement, IBM will manage the computing technology, customer and other services underpinning Bharti Airtel’s mobile communications network spanning 16 African countries.
“There are huge opportunities throughout Africa to transform how people communicate,” Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said.
Bharti gave no financial details about the deal but analysts have pegged its value at more than $1.5 billion.
Bharti said the pact was expected to be finalised by year end with IBM, which views Africa as the next big emerging growth market as it diversifies revenues.
The African tie-up continues a partnership begun in 2004 when Bharti tapped IBM to run the information technology for its Indian network.
Since then, Bharti has seen growth explode to more than 150 million subscribers from six million to become India’s top mobile provider by customers.
“Bharti Airtel plans to replicate the success of its relationship with IBM by lowering the barrier to entry for the people of Africa to own a mobile device,” Bharti said. (AFP)
Bharti, which pioneered low-cost telecoms in India, hopes to cut Zain’s high cost base and win subscribers — and get subscribers to talk more using lower tariffs.
“We have achieved great success together in India, and now we are bringing that model to Africa,” IBM chief executive officer Samuel Palmisano said.
“By building a 21st-century telecommunications infrastructure for the continent... we expect to help spark transformation,” he said.
According to global consultancy Deloitte, just 40 of every 100 Africans have a mobile phone but demand is growing by 25 percent annually.