Bharti Airtel Mobile Services In India

Airtel is the name of the company's mobile services brand. It operates in 19 countries. It is the 5th largest mobile operator in the world in terms of subscriber base. Airtel's network consists of 3G and 2G services depending on the country of operation.

In India, the company's mobile service is branded as Airtel. It has nationwide presence and is the market leader with a market share of 30.07% (as of May 2010).

On 19 October 2004, Airtel announced the launch of a BlackBerry Wireless Solution in India. The launch is a result of a tie-up between Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited and Research In Motion (RIM).

The Apple iPhone 3G was rolled out in India on 22 August 2008 by Airtel & Vodafone. Both the cellular service providers rolled out their Apple iPhone 3GS in the first quarter of 2010. However, high prices and contract bonds discouraged consumers and it was not as successful for both the service providers as much as the iPhone is successful in other markets of the world.

On May 18, 2010, 3G spectrum auction was completed and Airtel will hav to pay the Indian government Rs. 12,295 crores for spectrum in 13 circles, the most amount spent by an operator in this auction. Airtel won 3G licences in 13 telecom circles of India: Delhi, Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (West), Rajasthan, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, North East, Jammu & Kashmir. It plans to launch 3G services in October 2010.

Subscriber base in India

The Airtel subscriber base according to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) as of May 2010 [15] was:

Metros

* Chennai - 2,704,067
* Delhi - 6,204,025
* Mumbai - 3,066,905
* Kolkata - 2,821,065

"A" Circle

* Andhra Pradesh - 13,547,616
* Gujarat - 5,760,204
* Karnataka - 13,209,270
* Maharashtra - 6,701,424
* Tamil Nadu - 8,423,702

"B" Circle

* Haryana - 1,554,034
* Kerala - 3,185,876
* Madhya Pradesh - 7,202,200
* Punjab - 4,921,266
* Rajasthan - 10,802,138
* Uttar Pradesh (East) - 9,671,973
* Uttar Pradesh (West) - 4,317,918
* West Bengal - 6,001,669

"C" Circle

* Assam - 2,570,283
* Bihar - 9,652,206
* Himachal Pradesh - 1,346,666
* Jammu and Kashmir - 1,976,568
* North Eastern States - 1,538,853
* Orissa - 4,373,802

Airtel is the market leader in India with a total of 133,619,705 out of 444,295,711 GSM mobile connections or 31.18% market share as of July 2010.

Criticism

There has been lot of criticism about Airtel for its unauthorised VAS activation. Many of its services were activated automatically according to a complaint forum. In return Airtel lauched STOP/START 121 services for such issues.