‘In three years, Bharti will be a lifestyle company’

Bharti boss Sunil Mittal took time out from his hectic day to talk to Prabhakar Sinha. Excerpts:

How do you find the achievement of crossing the the milestone 100 million subscribers mark?
We take all the big events in our stride as it happened.
A 100 million connections—an amazing feat for Bharti. Does it seem you’ve climbed Mt Everest? I mean where do you go from here? What is the challenge now?
This is indeed a big achievement. A few years ago our big dream was to achieve a 25-million subscribers base. Only a few companies like British Telecom, Telefonica, Orange, Deutsche Telecom used to have those kind of numbers. Now our challenge is to globalise. We are in some small islandcountries. We would be looking at entering big countries now.
How will you do it? Via acquisitions?
Yes. We are looking for acquisitions in emerging markets like Africa and middleeast. We tried to acquire MTN of South Africa but couldn’t. It was a disappointment. But, we will keep trying to do acquisition to enter emerging economies.
Are you looking at any particular company at the moment?
Nothing of that sort. We keep getting proposals from our bankers. Due to recession in the developed world, valuations too have become attractive.
Where will growth come from here?
Commerce and entertainment will drive growth here. Fund transfer and collection through mobile phone will be a big business.
But, this will require 3G...
Partly yes. Entertainment will require 3G. But, money transfer through mobile phone can happen with the existing system of 2G also. I will say that in the next three years this company will move from being a telecom company to entertainment, fund transfer, and collection powerhouse. In other words, it will be a lifestyle company.
So you find Vodafone a more determined competitor than Hutch?
Hutch was very tough competitor. It used to move very fast. Ashim Ghosh is a great leader. He led the transformation of Hutch’s operation to Vodafone in a seamless manner. Vodafone is also doing well. But its response time is not very fast.
What’s the secret of succeeding during a slowdown?
You need to ensure an efficient production system. We have experienced some headwind but there’s not been much effect of the downturn. Only the international roaming business has been affected because of fewer foreigners visiting India due to the slowdown. Other than that, we try to hold your cost. In this, our model of outsourcing various services that we require is a great boon. Because of this, we could manage our cost very well. This helped us in containing our debt, which is at around $1 billion as against $7-8 billion in the case of some of our competitors of much smaller size.
You once said that after 50 years of age, you would join politics.
Yes, but I have changed my mind. Participating directly in politics is a different ballgame. I do participate in discussions and debates. I continue to be in public life from where I am. I think I can contribute more to the society from here. It is nice to see a lot of young people participating in politics nowadays.
We are in the cusp of a generational change in political leadership. What do you expect from this?
The new generation is more energetic, dynamic and understands the aspirations of youth better. They are comfortable with globalisation. Most of them are very well educated. But, the role of elderly statesmen will continue to be there in mentoring the new leadership.