Bharti Airtel awarded a five year managed services agreement to Ericsson for upgrading, optimizing and managing its mobile networks in Africa. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Under a separate two year agreement, Ericsson will modernize and upgrade Airtel’s mobile networks in Africa with the latest technology including its multi standard RBS 6000 base station. Ericsson will also provide technology consulting, network planning & design and network deployment.
Manoj Kohli, CEO (International) & Joint Managing Director, Bharti Airtel said: “Ericsson has been our managed services and network technology partner in the Asian operations. Given its expertise and strong track record we are confident that this partnership will be able to efficiently deliver the best networks and services to our customers in Africa. The new generation equipment from Ericsson will help reduce our total cost of ownership of the networks.” http://www.ericsson.com http://www.bharti.com
- Earlier this month, Bharti Airtel awarded a 10-year contract to IBM to provide IT solutions to its employees across 16 African countries. In terms of the agreement, IBM will provide a standard operating environment, help desk and desk side support to enhance employee efficiency and convenience. The announcement builds on a strategic partnership signed in late 2010 to manage the computing technology and services to power Airtel’s mobile communications network spanning 16 African countries.
- In June 2010, India’s Bharti Airtel completed its previously announced acquisition of Zain’s mobile operations in 15 countries across Africa for an enterprise valuation of US$10.7 billion.
The acquisition positions Airtel as one of the world’s top five mobile operators with 180 million customers, operations in 18 countries across Asia and Africa. It’s network footprint covers over 1.8 billion people. The company will have combined revenues of over US$12.4 billion and EBITDA of over US$ 4.7 billion, based on the last audited results.
Bharti’s acquisition of Zain’s African mobile services operations covers 15 countries with a total customer base of over 42 million. The total population base covered is over 450 million with telecom penetration of approximately 32%. The countries in which Bharti has acquired the operations are – Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. Zain is the market leader in 10 of the 15 countries and second in 4 countries.
For Zain, the sale resulted in aggregate net cash proceeds of US$8.968 billion. As at 8th June 2010, Zain confirms that it has received US$7.868 billion of cash proceeds from Bharti. The rest is due over the next 6 months. Zain has also licensed the use of the “Zain” brand and related trademarks to Bharti in all 15 African operations for an interim period.
