Bharti Airtel To Invest $1 Billion Every Year In African Markets

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel will invest $1 billion a year in Africa over the next few years.

"Airtel will invest $1 billion in Africa per annum over the next few years," Bharti Enterprises founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal stated on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

Airtel operates in 17 African countries and provides 3G services in 14 of them.

Mittal also said that the company would focus more on existing operations instead of expanding to new markets.

Airtel had ventured into the African market in 2010 after acquiring Zain Telecom for about $10.7 billion. It had made capital expenditure of $635 million in FY2013-14. Airtel’s total investment amounted to $14,388 million in the continent at the end of 2013-14.

Airtel Africa saw 2% growth in revenues for the last of quarter of 2013-14. It registered a net loss of $124 million, compared to a net loss of $91 million in the corresponding quarter of 2012-13.

For Airtel, the average revenue per user in the African continent saw a decline of 7% to $5.5.

However, the number of data customers in Africa during the last quarter of 2013-14 increased 53.5% to 22.3 million, which is now 32.1% of the total customer base.