Bharti Airtel in partnership with Manchester United

(This entry was originally uploaded on May 2009.)

Bharti Airtel, the largest mobile operator in India, has had a 5-year content partnership deal signed with English premier league football club Manchester United, which is also the second richest football club in the world. With this deal, Bharti Airtel has now become the first ever Indian investor of Manchester United who are currently world as well as European champion and even English Champion.

Though the amount of the deal has not been disclosed yet, it seems to be a multi-million dollar deal by which Airtel would be able to offer Manchester United related content over mobile phone for its 94 million subscribers across India, Sri Lanka and Seychelles. Well, it seems to be a win-win situation for Bharti Airtel as well as Manchester United.

Popularity of football in India is increasing highly at this moment. In fact, the English premier league is now getting more and more popular among India’s young generation who are highly attracted by seeing some of world’s biggest stars in EPL through live telecast of matches every week in different TV channels. So, Bharti Airtel can now attract India’s young generation more easily by providing them Manchester United related content over phone. In fact, Manchester United is the most popular English club in India with about 12 millions fans. Under this deal, Airtel would organize some competitions for its subscribers and the winners would get the opportunity to attend United’s matches at its home ground Old Trafford as well as in Europe, and there would be an opportunity to be part of Manchester United Soccer School too. All these are pretty much lucrative offers for the football crazy young people in India. So, it is expected that Bharti Airtel might gain a big chunk of market share among India’s young football fans.

Because of global economic downturn, Manchester United has recently found it very difficult to get sponsors. In fact, the club’s long-term sponsor AIG recently expressed their reluctance to extend their contract with Manchester United. So, the deal with Bharti Airtel came as a big relief for the club. Moreover, the club also has some other advantages over the deal. Bharti Airtel has more than 94 million subscribers, and by this deal, this large number of people would now have access to United content over phone. So, this is a good opportunity for Manchester United to increase its fan-base in India, which, by many, is considered to be one of the future destinations of English premier league. Manchester United already has more than 330 million fan base across the world and there is not much room to increase the number in England or in Europe. So, Asia has now become the next target market for European football and from this point of view, Manchester United seems to have signed a very significant deal with Bharti Airtel.

Related article:

The Economic Times

Bharti Airtel reaches 90 million subscriber base

Bharti Airtel, one of the Indian telecom giants, achieved another major milestone by doubling the gap with its nearest competitors. With its 90 million subscriber, the current difference between Bharti Airtel and its nearest competitor rose to 25 million which was previously 10 million-12 million. The company also announced to start its own 3G services within the next six months. In addition, its DTH business that started from October, 2008 is doing quite well. Currently, Bharti Airtel is providing DTH services in 92 cities in the country.

In an interview, Sunil Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Group, said that his company is doing well even in the middle of hard economic times and from now on, number of subscribers would not determine the top position of a mobile operator in India but the revenue share. Mr. Mittal said that his company now has 30% share of the total revenue generated by mobile operators in India.

Mr. Mittal said that they are now waiting for the allotment of the spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) through auction. Unfortunately, no specific date has been set for the auction due to various unresolved issues including reserve price of each block and number of blocks to be auctioned. Currently, the DoT recommended reserve price for each block is Rs. 2,020 for pan Indian operation. Finance Ministry suggested to double the price. Regarding the reserve price, Mr. Mittal said that they would go for pan-India operation if the reserve price is reasonable. The company’s finance is in good shape and it would be able to get investors to finance its 3G project. However, Bharti Airtel has no plans to raise funds in near future. Mr. Mittal also denied the foreign acquisition rumor at the moment. Bharti would not get into any developed countries as there are high risk factors.

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Business Standard

(This entry was first published in February 2009. Because of a technical problem, the entry had to be deleted and I am reposting again now.)