Airtel crosses 1 m. customer mark in 171 days

by Charmaine FERNANDO

"It took us only 6 months to cross the one million revenue generating customer mark becoming the fastest expanding wireless operator in Sri Lanka' said Amali Nanayakkara, CEO, Barthi Airtel Lanka at a media conference held at Cinnamon Grand Colombo, this week. Exceeding expectations is not their tagline but the attitude with which Airtel hit Sri Lankan market acquired the desired results in double quick time.

Deputy CEO, Barthi Airtel Sanjay Kapoor hands over a sim card to the proud customer

Barthi Airtel is the newest mobile operator to find a strong niche in the most vibrant mobile communications market in South Asia, Sri Lanka. The key driving factor is our customer service which is designed around the aspirations and needs of our market segments. Every single customer is very special to us and we are ready to work out a package specifically for him or her. This personalized packages will meet customer demands and budgets.

Delighting our customer is paramount in our holistic approach to business said Sanjay Kapoor, Deputy CEO, Barthi Airtel. We are happy to have led the affordability drive in Sri Lanka.

We have a strategic intent to deliver technologically superior network and world class services at remarkably affordable prices. We will continuously enhance our services with innovative products to penetrate the market with efficient and smart service delivery he said.

Barthi Airtel Lanka is a subsidiary of one of Asia's leading integrated telecom services providers, Barthi Airtel, which boasts a 100 million customer base and have been featured in Forbes Asia' Fab 50 list, rated amongst best performing companies in the world in the Business Week IT 100 list of 2007 and voted India's Most Innovative Company in a survey, by The Wall Street Journal.

Speaking on the occasion, Amali Nanayakkara, Barthi Airtel Lanka CEO said that when Barthi Airtel decided to provide the best technology, they constantly strive to deliver and Sri Lanka has been no exception. We benchmark ourselves with the best in the world. Achieving targets in Sri Lanka was that much quicker for and we hit the 100,000 active customer mark in just 4 days.

The 500,000 was achieved in 30 days and now 171 days later we are committed to delighting a million active customer base. Confident indicators, every one of them proving we are the fastest growing mobile operator in Sri Lanka.

We have made investments at the onset, to the tune of US $ 250 million and further invested a US $ 120 million to meet costs the expansion. Barthi Airtel is constantly working on improvising our business model as we proceed in our market expansion drive.