Top Questions What is Bharti Airtel known for? Bharti Airtel, the flagship company of Bharti Enterprises, is India’s second largest telecom operator by market share. It offers cellular services, fixed-line telephone and broadband services, direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television, telecom infrastructure, and basic banking services. What is Sunil Bharti Mittal’s most significant contribution to the Indian telecom industry? Sunil Bharti Mittal introduced the “minute factory” model in telecom, outsourcing operations to reduce costs and scale rapidly. He expanded Bharti Airtel’s services across India and into Africa, navigating price wars and competition to make Airtel a leading telecom company. Sunil Bharti Mittal is the billionaire founder and chair of Bharti Enterprises, one of India’s largest conglomerates. The Bharti group owns businesses across a wide variety of sectors, including mobile and satellite communication, real estate, insurance, and hospitality. Mittal and his family’s fortune (worth more than $30 billion by 2025) was built largely on the success of Bharti Airtel, the flagship company of the group and India’s second largest telecom operator by market share. Mittal’s sons, Kavin and Shravin Mittal, hold leadership roles in the Bharti group’s tech-focused business segments, and his daughter, Eiesha Pasricha, is an entrepreneur with investments in fashion and beauty brands.

　　Early ventures and “romance with telecom”Mittal was born in 1957 to Lalita and Sat Pal Mittal, a politician affiliated with the Indian National Congress. After graduating from Punjab University, Sunil Mittal started his first business manufacturing bicycle parts while in his late teens. He quickly branched out into other ventures, including producing yarn and stainless steel sheets for surgical tools. In 1980 he shifted base to the financial hub Bombay (now Mumbai) and found early success importing and distributing power generators from Japan. However, the business folded in 1982, when the government banned the import of foreign generators.

　　Out of business virtually overnight, Mittal pivoted into assembling push-button phones and fax machines from Taiwan, which he sold under the brand name Beetel at a time when rotary dial phones were the norm in India. Mittal has often said that his “romance with telecom” took root with this venture. Building on its success, he founded Bharti Telecom and inked partnerships with international companies to manufacture cordless phones, answering machines, and other telecom equipment.

　　Airtel and the telecom journeyThe birth of Airtel and its expansionHaving built a reputation in the telecom sector, Mittal jumped at the opportunity to bid for a license to provide cellular services in the country in 1992. “I knew at that time, right there and then, this is my moment now—I understand this business; although we are small, we should make a pitch for it,” he said in an interview with Harvard Business School in 2017. Mittal secured a license in partnership with French media and telecom company Vivendi. His company Bharti Cellular launched mobile services in Delhi in 1995 under the brand name AirTel. The company was later merged into Bharti Tele-Ventures, which was renamed Bharti Airtel in 2006.

　　Mittal is widely credited with introducing the “minutes factory” model in telecom, which outsourced large chunks of its operations, including network management and digital infrastructure, to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and scale rapidly. The company reached millions of subscribers in a few years with its low-cost cellular services. It also consolidated its position in the market by acquiring a number of competitors, including JT Holdings, Skycell Communications, and Spice Cell, expanding its services across the country’s major cities. Bharti Tele-Ventures went public in 2002, then valued at about $1.7 billion. By 2005 its service coverage extended across the entire country, and by the end of the decade the company entered neighboring countries Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

　　Mittal led the company’s expansion into Africa in 2010. However, the move did not initially yield the profits he had hoped for. Mittal has said the company underestimated the problems in the continent, which included a lack of skilled workers and poor infrastructure. Things turned around for Airtel after 2016 when it enforced cost cuts and focused on fourth-generation (4G) communication services. It eventually grew into one of the largest telecom players in Africa.

　　Price wars in Indian telecomIn the first decade and a half of the 21st century, Airtel navigated an aggressive price war in a crowded Indian telecom sector, which included the likes of Vodafone, Telenor, and Tata Teleservices, to emerge as the market leader. However, the market underwent a seismic shift in 2016 with the entry of Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, which disrupted the industry by aggressively undercutting competitors and taking the lead in 4G communication. The heightened competition led to a spate of mergers and acquisitions in the sector, and when the dust settled, only three major private players remained: Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone Idea.

　　Much of the Mittal family’s wealth is derived from the more than 20 percent stake it holds in Airtel. Mittal’s individual net worth is estimated to be about $14.5 billion. With close to 400 million subscribers as of 2025, Airtel is India’s second largest telecom company, behind Jio. It is also the country’s fourth largest listed company, valued at about $140 billion. The company also offers a host of other services, including fixed-line telephone and broadband, direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television, telecom infrastructure, and basic banking services.

　　Other venturesThrough Bharti Enterprises, Mittal has a wide array of business interests in India and abroad beyond Airtel, ranging from retail and hospitality to mobile gaming and satellite communications.

　　Among the group’s most forward-looking investments is Eutelsat OneWeb, a space communications company delivering broadband Internet—primarily to other businesses—through its constellation of more than 600 satellites in low Earth orbit.

　　Mittal has shown an interest in legacy businesses in the United Kingdom. Through an investment in Norlake Hospitality, Bharti Enterprises owns the storied Scottish resort Gleneagles and the Hoxton hotel chain. In 2024 Bharti Enterprises became the largest shareholder in BT Group (formerly British Telecom), one of the oldest telecom companies in the world.

　　Recognition and philanthropyIn 2007 Mittal received the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian award. He has also served as an adviser on the Indian prime minister’s council on trade and industry between 2010 and 2013 and has been a leading figure in several of India’s global trade and investment initiatives. In recognition of his investments in the United Kingdom, Mittal was awarded an honorary knighthood by King Charles III in 2024.

　　Mittal’s philanthropic efforts include the Bharti Airtel Foundation, which runs more than 170 schools across the country that mainly cater to underprivileged students and provides support to boost the quality of education in government schools.

　　Arpit Nayak