Bharti Airtel inks deal with Comviva for African services

Bharti Airtel, India's biggest telecom service provider, has entered into a five-year deal with mobile software maker Comviva for providing value-added services across Airtel's operations in 16 African countries.

"By handing over the management of operations to Comviva, we can enhance efficiencies in our operations and bring a closer focus on marketing initiatives that will help drive usage and engagement levels across our customer base," Airtel Africa chief executive (international) and joint managing director Manoj Kohli said.

Comviva chief executive officer Manoranjan Mohapatra said: "This is a landmark deal for Comviva, as we will manage all VAS nodes across Airtel operations in 16 countries in Africa."

Last year, in the largest-ever telecom takeover by an Indian company, Bharti had acquired Kuwait-based Zain Telecom's African business - covering 16 countries on that continent - for $10.7 billion (Rs48,000 crore).

Earlier, Airtel Africa outsourced its core customer service functions, including call centres and back office operations, to IBM, Tech Mahindra and Spanco. It has also selected IBM to manage its IT systems to power the mobile communications network across the continent, Bharti said in a statement.

Comviva, in addition to managing all the VAS nodes, will also manage the complexities associated with the emergence of multiple technologies, different standards, myriad applications and content, Bharti Airtel the statement added.