Bharti to streamline Operations

Bharti Airtel is looking to streamline its business as India's largest telecom group integrates its recently acquired African operations and squares up to rivals in the domestic market.

The company last year agreed a $10.7-billion deal to acquire the African operations of Kuwait-based Zain, is understood to be looking to merge its core mobile, satellite, television, broadband and fixed-line businesses.

G.V. Giri of brokerage IIFL said, "A move to reduce costs, simplify the chain of commands and maximize the mobile business would make sense in the context of broader industry trends as operators looked to sell fixed-line, mobile or broadband services all at once."

"Looking five years out, you would expect telecoms groups to have a tighter degree of convergence in areas such as billing and technology. The rate of (new subscriber) additions continues to be strong, voice Arpu (average revenue per user) has stabilized, and the company is getting an increasing share of revenue from data. We expect to see an improvement in margins," he added.

And while Bharti has recorded several consecutive quarters of falling net profits, it is better placed than some of its rivals to continue growing. Bharti has had to deal with the logistics of working with governments and infrastructure in 15 countries across Africa.