Bharti group eyes listing in US market

Sunil Bharti Mittal-promoted Bharti group is planning to list in the US market to access capital and expand visibility overseas.

Sunil Bharti Mittal-promoted Bharti group is planning to list in the US market to access capital and expand visibility overseas.

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"We rely with the best in the world, whether it is technology, whether it is service providers, strategic partners -- we seek global capital, we will go to the markets to get more money, both equity and debt. We are planning to list ourselves in the American markets. But our vision is to be globally admired for providing telecom services", Bharti group chairman Sunil Mittal told CNN on its 'Talk Asia' programme.

"On the ground our operations are in India. We believe we are in a country where the growth is still to be captured, so we will remain reasonably focused in this country", he said.

Mittal said Bharti is targeting a customer base of 25 million in next two years.

"We have to manage growth; we will be a 25-million customer company in two years. There are only six companies in the world which have 25 million customers or more, and when I compare myself with those companies, we are rather modest and tiny in size and resources", he said.

Mittal is also bullish on other business the company has entered into recently, like bidding for airport modernisation and fruit and vegetable export business. It has tied up with Changi Airport of Singapore to bid for modernising the Mumbai and Delhi airports.

"If you go to the airport today, it's 1950s vintage, it is horribly bad, very poor planning, it doesn't cope with the capacity. We hope we will get the honour of doing the modernisation work", he said.

With over 26 per cent marketshare, Bharti's Airtel brand had 1.02 crore cellular users as on January 2005.