Bharti Airtel India Assignment

1

A DETAIL STUDY ON 2009BHARTI AIRTEL

New Horizon College of engineering.

2010

Submitted in fulfillment of the Services marketing assignment. Submitted To By Dr.Sheelan Misra

Submitted NAME Vinay Raja Rameez Aman Jaiswal Mallikarjuna

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Mobile penetration is currently exploding in India and Bharti Airtel has been riding the crest of the huge mobile industry wave that has been formed. Vast market opportunities have now opened up the playing field in Indian telecom market and also has made it much more competitive. In this type of competitive environment it will be interesting to

find out how AIRTEL advertisements have helped it to retain its number 1 position. The objective of the study is to find out how the different advertisements of AIRTEL are impacting the viewers to use AIRTEL and what type of changes AIRTEL needs to make in near future to make its advertisements more efficient and effective.

Bharti Airtel India LTD.

"Refine your processes, strive for dominance and build a brand"-Sunil Bharti Mittal(Chairman and Managing Director Bharti Group)

CHAIRMAN’S PROFILE Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Group can be labelled as the most ambitious telecom entrepreneur in India. Sunil a former student of Harvard Business School graduated from Punjab University. The son of a parliamentarian, Sunil did not want to follow his father’s footsteps. He had shown an interest in business even from his teenage days. So after graduation, Sunil got together with his friend and formed a small bicycle business with borrowed capital in the1970s. But by 1979, he realized that this business would remain small. So he moved out of Ludhiana, spent a few years in Mumbai and in 1981, was running an import and distribution operation out of New Delhi and Mumbai.

By 1982, Mittal had started a full-fledged business selling portable generators imported from Japan and that gave him the chance to involve himself in activities like marketing and advertising. Things went smoothly until the government banned the import of generators as two Indian companies were awarded licenses to manufacture generators locally. Sunil Mittal got interested in push button phones while on a trip to Taiwan, and in 1982, introduced the phones to India, replacing the old fashioned, bulky rotary phones that were in use in the country then. Bharti Telecom Limited (BTL) was incorporated and entered into a technical tie up with Siemens AG of Germany for manufacture of electronic push button phones. By the early 1990s, Mittal was making fax machines, cordless phones and other telecom gear.

BHARTI ENTERPRISE Bharti Enterprises is one of India’s leading business groups with interests in telecom, retail, manufacturing, agri business and financial services. • BHARTI AIRTEL Bharti Airtel, is Asia’s leading integrated telecom services provider with operations in India and Sri Lanka. Bharti Airtel has been at the forefront of the telecom revolution and has transformed the sector with its world-class services built on leading edge technologies. •

FINANCAL SERVICES

•

BHARTI RETAIL

In financial services, Bharti is partnering with AXA of France to offer life insurance, general insurance and asset management.

Bharti Retail, the 100% subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises operates multiple format consumer friendly stores. Bharti Wal-Mart, is a B2B JV with Wal-Mart for wholesale cash-and-carry and back-end supply chain management operation. •

BHARTI TELE TECH LTD

Established in 1985, Bharti Teletech is, currently engaged into distribution & marketing of wide range of products that include Smart Phones, high quality cordless phones, modems, audio / video conferencing products, Free To Air Set Top Boxes, Fixed Cellular Phones & Fixed Wireless Terminals. The alliances are with Blackberry, Apple, ASUS, Polycom, Transcend, Logitech, Huawei, Samsung, Aastra, Panasonic and Sanyo. Apart from this, Bharti Teletech is also engaged into manufacture of high quality landline telephones at its manufacturing operations Ludhiana under Beetel brand for Airtel, BSNL / MTNL as well as retail market & exports to over 30 countries across more than 5 continents.

•

TELECOM SEYCHELLES LTD

A subsidiary of Bharti, Telecom Seychelles Ltd provides comprehensive telecom services including 3G mobile services in Seychelles, under the ‘Airtel’ brand.

•

FIELD FRESH FOOD PVT LTD

FieldFresh Foods Pvt. Ltd., is a venture between Bharti Enterprises and Del Monte Pacific Limited, to offer fresh and processed fruits and vegetables in the domestic as well as international markets, including Europe and the Middle East.

•

MOBILE SERVICE

Bharti Airtel offers GSM mobile services in all the 23-telecom circles of India and is the largest mobile service provider in the country, based on the number of customers. •

BHARTI REALITY LIMITED

Bharti Realty Limited is a young, vibrant and dynamic realty company with expanding interests in commercial, retail and residential real estate. •

BHARTI FOUNDATION

Bharti Foundation was set up in 2000, with the vision, “To help underprivileged children and young people of our country realize their potential”. It aims to create and support programs that bring about sustainable changes through education and the use of technology and information. •

BHARTI INFRATEL Bharti Infratel, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, provides passive infrastructure services on a non-discriminatory basis to all telecom operators in India. Bharti Infratel also holds approximately 42% stake in Indus Towers, a joint venture between Bharti, Vodafone and Idea to offer passive infrastructure services.

BHARTI AIRTEL(COMPANY OVERVIEW) VISION:

By 2010 Airtel will be the most admired brand in India:

 Loved by more customers.  Targeted by top talent.  Benchmarked by more businesses.

MISSION: To be global admired for telecom services that delight customers. Bharti Tele-Ventures Mobile Division (Airtel) is one of India’s leading private sector providers of telecommunications services with more than 85.7 million customers in December 2008. The only operator to provide mobile services in all 23 business regions, or circles, in India, the company also provides telephone services and Internet access over DSL in 15 circles, complementing its national and international long distance telephone services with mobile and broadband services. Globally, Bharti Airtel is the 3rd largest in-

country mobile operator by subscriber base, behind China Mobile and China Unicom.In India, the company has a 24.6% share of the wireless services market, followed by 17.7% for Reliance Communications and 17.4% for Vodafone Essar.

Services offered under the brand name ‘Airtel’. BROADBAND AND INTERNET SERVICES. DIGITAL TV BLACK BERRY E-MAIL ON GO CALLING CARDS WIRELESS INTERNET FIXED LINE SERVICES

BOARD OF DIRECTORS The Board of Directors of the Company has an optimum mix of Executive and NonExecutive Directors, which consists of three Executive and fifteen Non-Executive Directors. The Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, is an Executive Director and the number of Independent Directors on the Board is 50% of the total Board strength. The independence of a Director is determined on the basis that such director does not have any material pecuniary relationship with the Company, its promoters or its management, which may affect the independence of the judgment of a Director. The Board members possess requisite skills, experience and expertise required to take decisions, which are in the best interest of the Company. The composition of the Board is as under: ➢ Sunil Bharti Mittal ➢ Rajan Bharti Mittal ➢ Akhil Gupta ➢ Rakesh Bharti Mittal ➢ Chua Sock Koong ➢ N. Kumar ➢ Kurt Hellstorm ➢ Donald Cameron ➢ Paul O’Sullivan ➢ Professor V.S. Raju ➢ Pulak Chandan Prasad ➢ Bashir Abdullah Currimjee ➢ Gavin Darby ➢ Syeda Imam ➢ Ajay Lal ➢ York Chye Chang ➢ Paul Donovan ➢ Arun Bharat Ram

CORPORATE STRUCTURE

SWOT ANALYSIS

THREATS STRENGTH OPPORTUNITYS WEAKNESS Price The fast-expanding Competition from IPLC BSNL market. and Competition Very focused from on other telecom. cellular MTNL and Leadership mobile operators. in fast growing Latest technology and low Saturation cellular point segment. in cost Basic Untapped Rural market advantage. Pan-India footprint. telephony service The only Indian operator, other Huge market. than VSNL, that has an international submarine cable.

GROWTH STRATEGIES DIVERSIFICATION: PRODUCT MARKET PENETRATION:BACKEND DEVELOPMENT: OUTSOURCING BROADBAND, LOOKING JOBS TO COMPANIES FOR FIXED OVERSEAS LIKE DEVELOPMENT: IPLC LINE, DIGITAL MARKET IBM,MPHASIS ,1)BHARTI-MTN AND TV, 3G HTMT MOBILE, OPERATING DEAL.2) WIMAX. IN JERSEY (Channel PRODUCTS Islands)UNDER AIRTELVODAFONE BRAND.

MANTRA: Focus on Core Competencies and outsource the rest! Airtel has partnered with leading players in telecommunication sector across the globe. It has managed to work with the best of domain specialists globally and emerge as a world class entity. Partnerships include operational contracts with marquee vendors and strategic investors ranging from private equity investors to global telecom giants. Following are the major partnerships of AIRTEL:  Warburg Pincus – a celebrated PE investor held a stake for a substantial period of time and was instrumental in providing Airtel support in its early stages.  Vodafone was a strategic investor in Airtel. The investment made by Vodafone in BHARTI is one of the largest investments made in Indian telecom sector.  Temasek – the Singapore based investor holds a considerable stake in it.  Ericsson was given the mandate to provide, manage and maintain the equipment as well as provide quality assurance in Airtel‘s then 13 mobile circles.  IBM was given the mandate to handle the back office requirements of Airtel’s presence in India. 

The company has a strategic alliance with Singtel. The investment made by SingTel is one of the largest investment made in the world outside Singapore.

 In the case of broadband and telephone services and enterprise services, equipment Suppliers include Siemens, Nortal and corning.  The call centre operations for the mobile services have been outsourced to IBM Daksh, Mphasis and Hinduja TMT.

POSITIONING THE BRAND

Appropriating the value of 'expression' Over the last couple of years, the market has grown considerably, with deeper penetration and wider usage of voice and data services, accompanied

by much higher competitive intensity," Atul Bindal, chief marketing officer, Bharti TeleVentures, expands on this. "In this context, differentiating merely on network, coverage and SMS is just not enough. You need to go beyond all the rational identifiers - which are prerequisites in any case - and connect at a deeper level. We needed a strong differentiator in an increasingly commoditized and crowded market. We found this differentiator in a core human truth that defines our category - which is that there are moments when you need to make your point, when you need to be heard. Expressing and communicating are perhaps two of the most basic emotions. AirTel enables you to make your point in the most expressive way, anytime, anywhere. The campaign is towards owning this through 'Express yourself.' We believe 'Express yourself' allows us to connect at a deeper level and create a long-term platform for the brand." For AirTel, the challenge also lay in presenting a unified 'face' to the consumer. This assumes significance when viewed in the light of the company's pre- and post-paid communication, which, in the past, had been treated very differently. Brand image, as a result, was being driven in two different dimensions. "Brand AirTel is a category leader straddling completely different market segments such as consumer, business and corporate, as well as different voice, data and payment platforms," says Bindal. "'Express yourself' enables the brand to unify and connect across the entire base of our existing and prospective customers." One of the most obvious benefits of owning a property such as 'candid expression' (and 'Express yourself') is the expansive nature of the thought. "The moment you have as broad a canvas as 'Express yourself', it becomes easy for anyone working on the brand to come up with new ideas and executions. That's what makes a good campaign idea," observes Rediff's Prashant Godbole, who, along with creative partner Zarvan Patel, conceived the campaign. This is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, Patel adds. "We will be taking the idea forward in many different ways in the forthcoming work," he informs. Patel also credits his creative team for "fleshing out the idea".

MARKETING STRATEGY

Process innovations and continues improvement through people involvement,problem investigation by "fact based- root cause analysis" Customer defined business processes based on customer specifications, airtel have webbed many business process on the following concepts: Delivery time Turnaround time Lead time Time to market Other performance indicators.

PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY After the liberalization of the Indian Telecom Sector in 1994, the Indian

cellular market witnessed a surge in cellular services. By 2005, there were a total of 12 players in the market with the five major players being Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited (Bharti), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Vodafone-Essar limited (previously Hutch), Idea Cellular limited (Idea), Reliance India Mobile (RIM),TATA Indicom, and Aircell in south india. All the players except RIM and TATA offered services based on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) technology. RIM and TATA provided services based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, and now they have entered GSM market, with the introduction of reliance GSM and TATA Docomo. However Virgin india mobile providing service based on CDMA technology is targeting a niche segment, featuring them as a youth brand. As competition in the telecom arena intensified, service providers took new Initiatives to woo customers. Prominent among these were - celebrity Endorsements, loyalty rewards, discount coupons, business solutions and Talk time schemes. The most important consumer segments in the cellular Industry is the youth segment and the business class segment. The youth Segment was the largest and fastest growing segment and was therefore Targeted most heavily by cellular service providers. Bharti Tele-Ventures adopted celebrity endorsement as its chief promotional Strategy. By 2004 it emerged the unprecedented leader commanding the Largest market share in the cellular service market. Vodafone Implemented the celebrity endorsement strategy partially, relying primarily On its creative advertising for the promotion of its brand. BSNL, on the other Hand, attracted the consumer through its low cost schemes. Being a state Owned player, BSNL could cover rural areas, and this helped it increase its Subscriber base. Reliance was another player that cashed on its innovative Promotional strategies, which included celebrity endorsements and attractive Talk time schemes. Idea, relied heavily on its creative media advertising sans Celebrities.

“RAHMAN TUNE CROSSES AIRTEL’S EXCLUSIVITY BARRIER” AirTel have hit the right note with its commercial starring musician A R Rahman. The tune composed by him for Airtel is a huge hit even today, not just with airtel customers but also with other customers. Overall, it is a great advertising product for AirTel and works like a “walking, talking brand ambassador.” The ringtone which is also the jingle for AirTel’s TV commercial, is proving to be a potent advertising tool for the company. It is not very clear what this means for the other cellular operators. Cellular users have been “forwarding” the tune to one another, which according to Mr Pota, has given AirTel a chance to enter the “mind of the user” irrespective of which service he opts for.

“It gives the user a chance to go back to the AirTel product and acts as a strong reminder medium,” he explains. Marketing professionals like Samsika Marketing Consultants’ managing director Jagdeep Kapoor point to the usage of an “audio celebrity” as something that is significant. “The normal practice is to opt for film stars and sportsmen rather than an audio personality” he says. Rivals, though seemingly unfazed by the phenomenon, seem to be doing their own homework on this brand of advertising. While none of them commented on AirTel’s strategy and its impact on their own subscriber base, one advertising professional working with a rival service provider opines that the tune is “transient” and not likely to have any long term impact as a brand building tool. Being the latest entrant in the Mumbai circle, AirTel has had to find ways of cutting through the clutter. Says Mr Kapoor,” AirTel will have try to find ways to attract new customers and convert the existing ones.” Explaining that the usage of an audio celebrity was more “strategic than tactical”, he adds that non-AirTel users will have the AirTel “brand experience” inspite of not using the service. While Mr.Pota highlights the fact that the usage of the tune by other Operators means “free advertising” for AirTel and the users having a Positive disposition towards the product, the nature of reaction from Competition remains unclear. “Competition will not do well to adopt a knee jerk reaction and will have to come out with advertising that is well thought out” explains Mr Kapoor. He anticipates a situation where the new entrant (AirTel) will continue to be more aggressive.

POPULARITY OF ADS OF DIFFERENT BRANDS AMONG VIEWERS Vodafone The advertisements of Vodafone were found to be more popular among the respondents. Most of them talked about the ‘’PUG(hutch dog)” and ZOO-ZOO. IDEA Abhishek Bachchan endorsing IDEA with the tag line‘’an idea can change your life”, is also very popular. AIRTEL ads are supposed to be more or less centered on emotional factors.

CORE COMPETENCE Airtel core competencies are sales & promotions and as of now Airtel is leading brand in mobile services in India. Airtel have three big personality Viz. Saif ali khan,Kareena kapoor, Shahrukh Khan and music maestro A. R. Rahman along with R. Madhavan and Vidhya Ballan for endorsing there product and services currently Airtel is outsourcing there no competence function and try to fully concentrate on his core competency that is sales promotion. Proportionate Revenue

Rs. 117,255 million (year ended March 31, 2008-Audited) Rs. 81,558 million (year ended March 31, 2009Audited) AS PER INDIAN GAAP ACCOUNTS

Shares in Issue 1,895,241,565 as at June 30, 2006Listings

The Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE) The National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) Market Capitalization Customer Base 25,648,686 GSM mobile and 1,591,071 broadband & telephone (fixed line) customers (Status as at month ended August 31, 2006) Operational Network Provides GSM mobile services in all the 23 telecom circles in India, and was the first private operator to have an all India presence. Provides broadband (DSL) and telephone services (fixed line) in 92 cities in India. Subscriber Base as on 31st July 2009 ( in millions)

OPERATORS

MARKET SHARE

TOTAL

(%AGE)

S.No.

RIVATE

54.26

52.33

PSU

14.22

12.50

TOTAL

61.02

59.83

Service Providers

Subscribers (in millions)

MARKET SHARE (%)

1

BSNL

18.8

24.2

2

MTNL

3.94

4.35

3

TATA DOCOMO& INDICOM

1.03

1.29

4

RELAINCE CDMA&GSM

8.86

11.44

5

BHARTI

20.00

36.6

6

VODAFONE

15.21

19.65

7

IDEA

10.16

12.92

All India

77.39

100

WHAT IS BHARTI-MTN DEAL? The duo has restarted merger talks to create $20 billion telecom entity. In fact, at a time when global giants are complaining about a cash crunch and putting ambitious plans on hold, Bharti Airtel has relaunched its audacious merger bid with MTN that could create a $61-billion transnational telecom goliath with combined revenues of $20 billion and over 200 million subscribers across Africa, Asia and Middle East. Here's decoding the deal that -- if it goes through -- will create a telecom entity which will be among the world's 10 biggest companies. Bharti will buy 36 per cent of MTN’s existing equity from MTN shareholders. It will pay for this in two parts - a cash portion of 86 Rand ($10.34) per share totaling $7.03 billion; and half a Bharti Airtel share for every MTN share it gets (about 34 crore shares worth roughly $6.2bn at Friday's price) MTN will buy 25 per cent of Bharti Airtel’s post-deal equity through fresh issue of Bharti shares. It will pay for this again in two parts - $2.89bn in cash and fresh issue of MTN shares to Bharti equivalent to 25 per cent of MTN's existing equity (worth $7bn). At the end of this complex swap, Bharti will hold about 48.8 per cent of MTN’s expanded equity, while MTN will hold roughly 36.4 per cent of Bharti's enhanced equity. Bharti will then have to pay MTN a net cash amount of $4.14bn.

HOW THE DEAL MAY GO? Bharti will buy 36 per cent of MTN’s existing equity from MTN shareholders. It will pay for this in two parts - a cash portion of 86 Rand ($10.34) per share totalling $7.03 billion; and half a Bharti Airtel share for every MTN share it gets (about 34 crore shares worth roughly $6.2bn at Friday's price) MTN will buy 25 per cent of Bharti Airtel’s post-deal equity through fresh issue of Bharti shares. It will pay for this again in two parts - $2.89bn in cash and fresh issue of MTN shares to Bharti equivalent to 25 per cent of MTN's existing equity (worth $7bn). At the end of this complex swap, Bharti will hold about 48.8 per cent of MTN’s expanded equity, while MTN will hold roughly 36.4 per cent of Bharti's enhanced equity. Bharti will then have to pay MTN a net cash amount of $4.14bn.

‘BIGGEST-EVER CROSS-BORDER DEAL’ At an estimated ticket size of $23 billion, this will be the biggest cross-border deal that India Inc has been involved in, and twice as much as what British telco Vodafone paid to acquire a little over half of Hutchison Telecom International’s Indian operations in early 2007. Proposed $23-29 bn deal would be biggest ever M&A transaction involving an Indian company, almost double the previous highest of $13bn paid by Tata Steel for Corus. It would be the third largest deal in the world in 2009 so far, after Pfizer’s $64bn buyout of Wyeth and Merck’s $46bn deal with Schering-Plough Excluding pharma, Bharti-MTN deal would be the largest in world this year so far. Bharti-MTN’s combined subscriber base of 200m would make it the world’s 4th-largest telecom entity, and largest outside China. The top 3 are China Mobile (472m), China Unicom (247m) and China Telecom (237m).

GETS ACCESS TO 21 NATIONS Bharti is already the world’s sixth largest telecom company, purely on the basis of the booming Indian economy. But a deal with MTN would give it access to 21 more countries, allowing it to boast of being a true Indian multinational, and a champion player in emerging markets.

BECOME MTN'S LARGEST SHAREHOLDER If the latest talks work out, Bharti will become MTN’s largest shareholder. Bharti Telecom will continue to be the largest shareholder in Bharti and together with MTN and SingTel will have a majority economic interest in Bharti. Bharti’s investor base would be widened by existing MTN shareholders holding a direct economic interest through fresh GDRs proposed to be listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the company told ToI.

GETS ACCESS TO EMERGING MARKETS Bharti Airtel’s institutional investors have given a thumbs up to the company’s plans to merge with South African telecom major MTN as they feel that access to emerging markets such as Africa and West Asia is crucial for the long-term growth prospects of the company.

GETS 'FOREIGN-OWNED' TAG The merger, which will bring in additional foreign investment into Bharti Airtel, could convert India’s largest telecom company into a foreign-owned entity, if MTN’s total investment adds up to more than 50 per cent of its enhanced equity.

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY Corporate Responsibility is an integral part of AIRTEL’s business. their values are: To be responsive to the needs of our customers.

To trust and respect our employees. To continuously improve our services – innovatively and expeditiously. To be transparent and sensitive in our dealings with all stakeholders.

COMMUNITY INITIATIVES Reduce Paper usage: Encouraging its customers to sign up for e-bills and electronic

recharging etc. Sharing Infrastructure: Airtel believes in sharing of infrastructure (passive) with other telecom operators. This ensures that Airtel can continue to serve its customers effectively and efficiently by utilizing minimum resources. Reducing Fuel Consumption due to travel: Bharti, having grown to be a large company

on many counts, faces the key issue of operations coordination. While one would usually coordinate with others through face-to-face meetings, Bharti has institutionalized the habit of using videoconferencing and intranet facilities to interact. This significantly reduces the need for transport and thereby fuel consumption, it saves on time and generally creates a much more efficient working atmosphere. Advertisement Material: Bharti Airtel uses aqua-based ink for all its in-shop branding, in spite of its cost being three times the cost of ink which is normally used. The aqua-based ink is environment friendly and does not emit any fumes and hazard. Sometimes flex materials are used for hoardings, but since they are not disposable these hoardings are donated to poor people so that they can use it as roof-material on their huts. Green-Shelters: Bharti Airtel is working with its suppliers and experimenting with alternate sources of energy like solar, wind, bio-fuel/ hydrogen to further reduce environmental impact.

THE CLAIMS MADE IN AIRTEL ADS ARE BELIEVABLE?? ➢ About 50% of the respondents had this belief that the claims made about the connectivity, voice clarity etc in the AIRTEL ads are true. The major portion of these 50% respondents was actually the AIRTEL users.35% of people suppose these claims as just a part of advertisement and non existing in actual. ➢ 70% of the respondents said that they started using that sim card because of one or other type of scheme. The different types of schemes like-10 paisa call, night calling free etc help the customers make their mind to shift to that particular service provider. The advertisements in general have a very small impact on their decision.

FINDINGS FROM THE STUDY 1)

People know about AIRTEL cellular service through

30 % Friends 69% Advertisements 1% Other Sources 2) Feature of AIRTEL forced people to use AIRTEL is 20% Advertisements 40% Connectivity 30%Schemes

10%Goodwill

3) People’s first choice of cellular service when they want to use mobile phone AIRTEL 45% VODAFONE 30%

IDEA 8% RELIANCE 10% TATA INDI

5% OTHERS 2% 4) Feature of AIRTEL is better than the people’s previous cellular service. Advertisements 25% Connectivity 60% Schemes 15% 5) Type of advertisement mostly like by people in AIRTEL is Audio Visual : 90%

Print : 4%

Audio : 6%

6) Celebrity liked by people very much in AIRTEL Saif : 1%

Shahrukh : 38%

Madhavan : 29%

A. R. Rehman :

32% 7) People take benefits of schemes offered by AIRTEL YES : 85%

NO : 13%

CAN’T SAY : 2%

8) AIRTEL IS #1 in India Yes : 95%

No : 5%

9) People watch TV programmes sponsored by AIRTEL Yes :96%

NO:4%

10) People recommend their friends and family to use services. Yes :97%

NO:3%

The research carried out helped us to come to the following out comes: ➢ In terms of liking of ads, Vodafone is way ahead of AIRTEL. ➢ Viewers have a liking towards most of the celebrities used in AIRTEL ads. ➢ The viewers like the ads with some funny content but this is missing in most of the AIRTEL ads ➢ The majority of the customers starts or shifts to a service provider based upon word of mouth and different schemes. The advertisements play a very little part in their decision. ➢ The preferences of the viewers for the celebrities are always changing so we can’t rely on a single celebrity for ever. ➢ Viewers like to see short and up to the mark ads but Most of the AIRTEL ads are too lengthy.

RECOMMENDATIONS After the complete analysis of entire STUDY we put forward a set of recommendations which are a follows: ➢ PRICE

Depending on the market conditions / competition from cellular or WLL-Mobile service providers and also to suit local conditions, there should be flexible pricing mechanism (either at central or local level). ➢ IMPROVEMENT IN TECHNOLOGY Airtel should immediately shift to third generation switches by replacing its c-dot switches. This will Improve the quality of service to desired level and provide simultaneous integration with the nationwide network. The special distribution of the transmission towers should be increased to avoid “no signal pockets” ➢ UNTAPPED RURAL MARKET

Large part of Indian rural market is still untapped therefore Airtel is required to bring that area under mobility. ➢ ADVERTISEMENT STRATEGY  Along with using various celebrities for endorsements, AIRTEL should try to introduce advertisements with some sort of humor.

 The majority of perspective customers are teenagers, so AIRTEL ads should be more focused around them  The people now days have started using more and more internet, so along with TV advertisements, AIRTEL should give more attention to online advertisements.  People give very less attention to the print ads, so these ads should be mainly informative ads i.e. the ads giving information about new schemes and recharge coupons etc.

LIMITATIONS The research was carried out taking care of each & every small points which can alter the results but still there were some limitations that must be acknowledged ○ The respondents chosen were mainly from cities. So the results don’t include the responses of rural customers. ○ To find out the overall effectiveness of this research a lot of data regarding the Pricing strategy involved, cost of advertisement, remuneration paid to the celebrities etc. Was required, however this type of data is classified so it was not available.

CONCLUSION Mobile penetration is currently exploding in INDIA and Bharti Airtel has been riding the crest of the huge mobile industry wave that has been formed. Consequently great potential and huge market opportunities have now opened up the playing field in India’s telecom market and also made it much more competitive. In the present open market environment, there are currently over 10 major operators in India which are competing with each other to get the major share of this market. So at any point of time, AIRTEL can’t take things lightly. It needs to change its marketing and advertising strategies gradually. The advertisements used at present seem appropriate for AIRTEL but we can’t always rely on these advertisements and the celebrities.

RESEARCH METODOLOGY The data was collected from primary as well as secondary sources.

Primary data source: Around 80 people were randomly selected and their response to the questionnaire was taken as primary data.

Secondary data source: The secondary data was collected from following sources • Websites

www.airtel.in www.bharti.com www.google.com • Newspapers Times of India (dated: 21/08/09) Business line (dated:15/09/09) Economic times (dated: 10/06/09)