The Bharti group is ready for new acquisitions in the telecom sector and plans to raise resources by listing in the international market.
"We are ready to move once the government allows intra-circle consolidation of licenses," Sunil Mittal, chairman of the Bharti group, said. Currently, buying a company within the same circle is not allowed.
Mittal also pointed out the group has been pushing for an increase in the 49 per cent FDI limit in the telecom sector.
"We want the FDI limit to be raised only because we plan to list abroad. However, a lot of people have assumed that we are selling out to Singapore Telecom. This is simply not true," Mittal clarified.
Bharti expects to virtually double its subscriber base from 3 million to 6 million by the end of the current financial year.
It also plans to treble the usage of minutes per month from 1 billion to 3 billion during the same period, and has projected a 50 per cent growth in revenue.
Mittal pointed out that the total cellular subscriber base, including GSM and wireless in local loop or WLL subscribers, is projected to touch 30 million by the end of this financial year. Of this, 6 million subscribers are likely to opt for WLL, he estimated.
However, Mittal was optimistic that WLL operators would not be able to grab more than 30 per cent of the projected 100 million mobile subscribers over the next three years.
"Even in a worst case scenario, I do not see them getting more than 30 million subscribers," Mittal said.
The Bharti group supremo added that he did not see WLL posing any major challenges if it is strictly limited to an SDCA (representing a city or a taluka).
"If limited WLL were to be truly limited, it would never be a major challenge for us," he said.
Mittal said, his optimism stemmed from the fact that gap between WLL limited mobile service tariffs and GSM tariffs was narrowing.