Bharti welcomes Vodafone's acquisition of Hutch Essar

12 February 2007

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone have entered into a comprehensive MoU on a range of significant areas including infrastructure sharing, roaming and long distance services.

The company will be Vodafone's preferred vendor for NLD, ILD and leased line services. Vodafone will also give 50 per cent of its in-bound international roaming traffic to Bharti for three years and the two companies will also work on a comprehensive range of significant infrastructure sharing options including Bharti's 70,000 towers in India, enabling rapid network expansion to connect sub urban and rural areas across India.

In a statement to the exchanges, Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and managing director, Bharti Group, said, "We are pleased to welcome Vodafone and congratulate them on their Hutch acquisition. Today, the Indian telecom sector is one of the most sought after in the world and the bid is a strong endorsement of the government policy to promote the telecom sector.
Bharti and Vodafone have enjoyed a very fruitful partnership and both companies will work with the industry towards connecting millions of people across India."