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Bharti sees capex of $850 mn in 2005-06
Bharti Tele said it will spend up to $850 mn in the year ending March 2006 to almost double the number of towns it covers.
India's top listed mobile phone company, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd will spend up to $850 million in the year ending March 2006 to almost double the number of towns it covers, its chairman Sunil Mittal said on Thursday.
"Next year again, we are going to go in for a major expansion. Our plan is to take it (coverage) to over 5,000 (towns) by next March," Mittal told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a conference.
Bharti, 28-per cent-owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, is spending about $850 million in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2005 to increase its mobile services coverage to about 2,600 towns, Mittal said.
"We'll spend, I would say, $800-$850 (million), thereabouts," said Mittal, adding that the investments would be funded internally.
He said the firm was faring well in the current quarter.
"This quarter is looking good. Growth of customers is good."
Bharti's customer base is now about 11 million, with the number of mobile subscribers having crossed the 10-million mark, the chairman said.
Its mobile subscriber base had grown by 79 per cent in 2004 to 9.83 million users. The total number of subscribers, including fixed-line, had risen 75 per cent to 10.63 million.
New Delhi-based Bharti is expected to more than double its full-year profit to about Rs 13.5 billion ($309 million) according to Reuters Estimates, as mobile sales surge in Asia's fourth-biggest economy.
An early entrant in India's wireless market, Bharti is enjoying booming demand in a country where fewer than five in 100 people own a mobile phone compared with more than 25 in 100 in China.
Mittal said he has not had any discussions with SingTel on the Singapore firm raising its stake in Bharti after India raised the foreign investment cap in telecoms firms on Wednesday to 74 per cent from 49 per cent.
The subject was also "not on the agenda" of his planned meeting with SingTel, he said.
"We were always wanting to have more liberty to access capital. So this (the government move) gives us the wherewithal to raise capital and whenever the time is right, we will do something."
"We are very clear that we will be raising capital from the markets," he said.
Bharti shares rose 0.16 per cent to end at 219.40 rupees on Thursday, valuing the firm at around $9.3 billion. The benchmark Bombay index -- Sensex closed 1.4 per cent higher.
