Wal-Mart, Bharti to hold news conference

MUMBAI: Bharti Enterprises and Wal-Mart Stores Inc will hold a media conference in New Delhi at 3:30 pm on Monday, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said.

A senior official from Wal-Mart and the head of Bharti Retail Ltd, Rajan Mittal, will be present at the conference, she said.

NDTV Profit television said Bharti Enterprises chief Sunil Mittal said 8 joint stores had been finalised, with the first store formats to be cash-and-carry.

Earlier this year, Bharti and Wal-Mart agreed to form a joint venture for cash-and-carry stores and back-end operations in India.

Bharti overtakes Hutch in ARPU in Q4

NEW DELHI: India’s largest cellular operator, Bharti Airtel has overtaken Hutchison Essar (now Vodafone-Essar) with regard to its average revenue per user (ARPU). As per the latest data by the Cellular Operators Association of India, Bharti had an ARPU of Rs 343.17 per month for the quarter ended December 2006, ahead of Hutchison Essar’s Rs 340.15 per month.

HEL, India’s fourth largest telecom company, had the largest ARPUs amongst private operators until Q3 of the current fiscal. However, the company’s ARPU fell by over 9% in the quarter ended December 2006, from Rs 373.99 in September 2006 while Bharti witnessed only a 1.5% fall in its average revenues during the same period. Bharti had an ARPU of Rs 348.56 in September 2006.

More importantly, COAI’s data also reveals that ARPUs of Indian mobile companies, which are already the lowest in the world, is continuing to head further south, even as companies are registering a significant increase in their overall revenues.

Read more at Economic Times

Bharti goes into reinvent mode

Brand Bharti Airtel is on a reinvent mode. The northbound and highly diversified subscriber base and rapidly changing technology have prompted the Bharti Airtel management to look into its brand identity for the second time in its 15-year history.

With subscriber diversity growing by the day, the company is looking at increased segmentation of its consumers while delivering a common overarching message that binds all subscribers under one umbrella.

While on the one hand, the company is mulling value-based segmentation of its subscribers, on the other, it plans to segment its consumers both demographically and psychographically. Never mind the size of each segment, Bharti Airtel plans to have one universal message going across to all of them.

Read more at The Economic Times

Mittal rings in structural rejig at Bharti

Bharti Enterprises on Friday announced a new apex-level organisational structure effective from April 1, 2007, under which it will only play a supervisory role and be the strategic architect of all businesses of the group.

“Bharti Enterprises will now be responsible for evaluating new business opportunities, mergers and acquisitions and strategic alliances for the group,” its chairman and CEO Sunil Mittal told ET.

The group, best known for its cellular services under the Airtel brand, also has interests in diversified business areas including retail, communication and media devices, insurance and financial services, agri, BPO and software.

Read more at The Economic Times

Mittal rings in structural rejig at Bharti

NEW DELHI: Bharti Enterprises on Friday announced a new apex-level organisational structure effective from April 1, 2007, under which it will only play a supervisory role and be the strategic architect of all businesses of the group.

“Bharti Enterprises will now be responsible for evaluating new business opportunities, mergers and acquisitions and strategic alliances for the group,” its chairman and CEO Sunil Mittal told ET.

The group, best known for its cellular services under the Airtel brand, also has interests in diversified business areas including retail, communication and media devices, insurance and financial services, agri, BPO and software.

Read more at Economic Tmes