Airtel to make its grand entry tomorrow

by Lalin FERNANDOPULLE

Bharti Airtel, a leading mobile service provider in India will commence operations tomorrow in Sri Lanka, which is expected to revolutionise the country’s mobile phone industry with its state-of-the-art technology and customer-friendly services.

Head of Corporate Communications of Bharti Airtel Sri Lanka, Yohan Munaweera said that the company was happy to launch their operations in Sri Lanka and declined to comment further.

Bharti Airtel is the fifth player in the highly competitive mobile phone market in the country and will be faced with stiff competition.

President, Mobile Services, Bharti Airtel Ltd., Sanjay Kapoor said the company is committed to provide the best products and services to its customers in Sri Lanka.

“Our focus in the Sri Lankan market is to weigh affordability and support it with innovations to delight customers”, Kapoor said. Bharti Airtel will invest approximately US$200 million to set up and expand its services, which will span over a period of five years from the award of licence in April 2007.

“The company will use a major share of the investment in the initial 12-18 months as it will be the timeframe to set up operations”, he said.

He said the company has a talented team which has done a great job in setting up operations, and works with world renowned partners such as IBM for information technology and Huawei for network.

A spokesman for Dialog GSM said that they welcome competition and will offer the best services to their loyal customers.

“Dialog is confident that it can do well and will continue to provide value added services to be a key player in the industry”, he said. Officials of Tigo said they needed time and declined to comment on the new entrant into the market.

Dialog, Tigo, Hutch, Mobitel and Airtel are the time mobile phone operators in Sri Lanka.