HOLYMARY BUSINESS SCHOOL

REPORT ON AIRTEL
MARKET ANALYSIS
SUBMITTED TO: SWATHI MADAM

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I wish to express my sincere thanks to all the faculty
members of HOLYMARY BUSINESS SCHOOL, Who helped

me in choosing this topic and completing this study on

the MARKET ANALYSIS ON AIRTEL. The project helped
me to know about the marketing activities of the
companies. I acknowledge all the efforts by everyone else
who helped me in this.

INTRODUCTION:
Bharti Airtel Limited commonly known as
Airtel, is an Indian multinational
telecommunication Services company
Headquarter at New Delhi, India.
It operates in 20 countries across South Asia,
Africa and the Channel Islands. Airtel has GSM
network in all countries in which it operates,
providing 2G, 3G and 4G services depending
upon the country of operation.
Airtel is the world's third largest mobile
telecommunications company
Airtel is the largest provider of mobile
telephony and second largest provider of fixed
telephony in India, and is also a provider of
broadband and subscription
television services.

Vision and Mission statement

Vision Statement
By 2020 Airtel will be the most admired brand in
India:
Loved by more customers
Targeted by top talent

 Benchmarked by more businesses

Mission Statement
We at Airtel always think in fresh and
innovative ways about the needs of our
customers and how we want them to feel. We
deliver what we promise and go out of our way
to delight the customer with a little bit more

Strategic business units of Airtel

Mobile services
Airtel tele media services
Enterprise services

TIMELINE OF AIRTEL
Bharti Cellular launched cellular services as
"AirTel" in Delhi.
2004
On 19 October 2004, Airtel announced the
launch of a BlackBerry Wireless Solution in
India. The launch is a result of a tie-up
between Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited
and Research In Motion(RIM).
Informa Analyst Matthew Reed - Failure was
South Africas worry that control of MTN.

 India's second biggest overseas acquisition

after Tata Corus.
Bharti Airtel completed its $10.7 billion
acquisition of African operations from Kuwaiti
firm - Airtel the world's 5 largest wireless
carrier by subscriber base!!!

Target Audience
Prepaid connections:
Targets Audience is college students.
Post paid connection:
Target Audience is working people but there
can be secondary audiences such as house wife
and college going students who use this
connection.

Communication Campaign Tools

Advertisements
Creates pervasiveness
Creative quotient very high
Extra ordinary music used
TV, Print, Hoardings
Used celebrity endorsers such as Sachin
Tendulkar, SRK, Kareena Kapoor, Vidya
Balan, A.R Rehman

Sales Promotions

 There are over 800 Airtel Stores across India.

Every new mobile phone that is brought in The
Mobile Store, an Airtel GSM is gifted for free.
Airtel Tied up with Lufthansa to offer its
customers bonus miles on German Airlines.

TAGLINES

Power to keep in 5)
touch

199

Touch
Tomorrow
Live Every
Moment
Express
Yourself

(199
9)
(200
2)
(200
3)

COMPETITION
With the formation of Indus tower & partnering with Idea & Vodafone for
Indian Operations, Airtel has extended its infrastructure in the extreme parts
of the country for nationwide penetration, creating competitive edge over
other players in terms of low operational cost, better network connectivity,
coverage, low call drops & better customer service.
Airtel developed a sustainable advantage through its excellent network of
telecom towers. In many locations, newer entrants found it cheaper to rent
Airtels existing infrastructure rather than setup new towers. Also spending
extensively on advertising & promotions helped it to become a market leader.
Word of mouth is one of the strongest forms of promotions & Airtel has
completely leveraged that. Airtel is always known for its innovation and some
of its products were the lifetime prepaid, Airtel live, Hello tunes, My Plans, Mcheck are pioneer strategies & the list is never ending.

AIRTEL CUSTOMER BASE

Bharti Airtel now has 248.69 million customers, followed by Vodafone at 196.74 million
subscribers and Idea at 174.62 million. BSNL was at sixth position and has 85.29 million
subscribers behind Reliance Communications and Aircel with 101.91 million and 86.68
million subscribers. respectively.

Telephone Connections (in Million)

S. No. Name of Operator

Wired Line

Wireless
WLL

GSM

Total

1.42

83.87

85.29

Grand Total

BSNL

14.78

Bharti Airtel

3.64

RCom

1.17

Vodafone Essar

0.04

Tata Indicom

1.71

Idea

174.63 174.63

174.63

Aircel

86.68

86.68

86.68

MTNL

3.55

3.67

7.18

Loop Mobile

0.00

0.00

0.00

10

Quadrant Televentures

0.25

3.13

3.13

3.38

11

Sistema Shyam

0.06

7.74

7.74

7.80

12

Uninor

51.68

51.68

51.68

13

Videocon

6.73

6.73

6.73

Total

3.51

25.17

77.64

248.69 248.69

252.33

24.27

101.91

103.07

196.75 196.75

196.79

60.28

0.13

100.07

60.28

61.99

150.33 876.83 1,027.17 1,052.33

Distribution strategy in the Marketing strategy of Airtel

It has wide spread simple and effective channel structure. Company uses 2Tier & 3-tier distribution network system.
Under 2-tier distribution network, company appoints UD (urban distributors)
& RS (Rural Suppliers). UD distribute the items to retailers according to the
demand & transfer easy balance to retailer through FOS (Field officer Sales)
SIM who work under UDs.
Under 3-tier distribution RS (rural supers) distributes the items to RD (Rural
Distributors) & transfer easy balance into RDs SIM, who then distribute it to
Retailers.
Apart from all these company also uses Airtel Relationship centers under
franchised model & company officials for corporate sales.

Marketing strategy of Airtel

In the highly competitive telecom market where each company is trying hard
to retain their customers & increase ARPU (Average return per user), Airtel is
facing stiff competition from small & local players like Uninor, Aircel who are
present in few circles. Also players like Vodafone who are fighting head on to
emerge as a market leader possess a serious threat to the company.

Connectivity, data services & VAS (Value added services) will be the driving
force of the telecom industry.

SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths
Huge customer base of 186.9M, highest in
India.
Recognized and established brand name. High
Brand Equity and Strategic Alliances.
Effective advertising capability with out of the
box thinking.
Targeting youth of India (the highest
population bracket 18-25yrs)
Wide and extensive presence in 25 states of
India.
Airtel Money, SmartDrive services which is
getting popular.
Huge variety of products in every segment
with competitive prices and value added
services.
Weaknesses

 Poor network in rural areas

Operating margin, Net profit margin is
decreasing year on year basis.
Low GPRS speed
Decreasing ARPU (Average revenue per user)

Opportunities
Strategic tie ups with google, apple, blackberry
to avail various services like search engine for
broadband, iphone and blackberry phone.
Increasing mobile and broadband market in
rural and urban area of India.
Can Expand its Airtel Tv brand as the
digitalization of TV took from july 2012.
Indian Cellular market is the fastest growing
market in the world

Threats
Many international player will come in the
industry, giving tough competition
Political instability is making call charges
more.
Tough competition from china in the future.

 Mobile number portability can result in

decrease in customer base.
Competition from big players in DTH and other
products.

FINDINGS
After doing this whole project work, I have found out
the following pivotal information about the AIRTEL
network:
AIRTEL is currently the market leader.
AIRTEL has the most number of users at present.
4G service was started by AIRTEL in India. It has
the widest 4G coverage too.

SUGGESTIONS
New tariff plans.
More value added services.
Increase in visibility and coverage.
The AirTel - AirTel advantage (Inter product link).
New innovative packages.

CONCLUSION
The conclusion of my study is that AIRTELs Advertising has a
major impact its users. People like its schemes very

much . AIRTEL had created a very good image on the

mind of the new users of cellular service. AIRTEL has
adopted a very good strategy by providing a new
connection with NOKIA who is market leader in mobile
set, many new users buy Nokia sets and they get a
free connection of AIRTEL. AIRTEL is successful in
capturing the highest market share by adopting Celebrity
Endorsement Strategy. A.R. Rehmaans tune for AIRTEL
worked as free advertising for AIRTEL as another service
user uses it too. Other celebrities like Shahrukh Khan
(bollywood) and Sachin Tendulkar (Cricket) has also
contributed very much in AIRTEL.