Bharti Airtel to invest $150 million in Sri Lanka mobile phone operations

Our Corporate Bureau
15 May 2007

Mumbai: Bharti Airtel Limited, India's top mobile phone operator, will invest $150 million in Sri Lanka to roll out operations in that country. The company has signed an agreement with the island nation's foreign investment promotion body towards this end, a company official said.

Airtel had recently got the permission from Sri Lankan Telecom Regulatory Commission to start 2G and 3G services. It bagged the licence competing against Reliance Communications and Maxis Telecom.

Bharti is currently scouting for locations to set up base stations and talking to equipment vendors to rollout its network there.

"If things go as planned, we are hoping to launch our services by the end of this calendar year," Narendra Gupta, a director of Bharti, said.

The Sri Lankan operations would be the first international foray for the Indian company and Bharti hopes to use it as a base to expand into the South Asian region.