Over the years, Airtel has had to face several challenges, most important of them being hyper –competition and severe debts. Firstly, several new players like Vodafone and Idea entered the telecom market in 2008 and since then have been registering consistent growth coupled with increase in subscriber base. An example to illustrate this would be the fact that Idea has nearly doubled its market share from 9.5% to 17% over the past 4-5 years (most of which it has eaten out of Airtel’s). This level of competition has forced Airtel to provide its services at lower rates than usual and in turn resulted in a significant decrease in the profit margin in spite of an increase in subscriber base. Next, Airtel’s debt has increased by…show more content… The main reason for the company’s sub-standard performance is the increasing competition in Nigeria, which is Airtel’s biggest market in the continent. As a result, the operator has had to decrease its tariffs by 30% to be in the hunt for market share, but this has not done a good deal to the margins. Another disadvantage associated with the African market is that the tariffs here are 6-7 times higher than in India. Also, the income levels are lower in Africa. Inspite of these factors and the regulatory challenges, Africa promises to be a key market for the operator. Kenya’s internet subscriber base growing by 75 per cent during 2012 is testimonial to that. Additionally, improving economic and political scenarios, and greater share of youth population make Africa a lucrative market – especially for data services and m-commerce…show more content… It has to proactively improve its quality of service. The importance of this can’t be overstated, especially considering the growing number of dropped calls and the lack of network coverage in many areas. The business growth is likely to be driven by coming up with initiatives in the data segment and by enhancing rural services. The former could take top priority in the near future - the share of non-voice revenues grew from 16.2% in March 2012 to 17.4% in March 2013. The 3G segment is already a hit with the operator already having 6.4 million active 3G customers. In addition to this, the plans to introduce 4G in Delhi and Mumbai through its acquisition of Qualcomm’s broadband business in India, comes as a very significant step. On the rural front, the operator should continue its good work – it had the highest number of rural subscribers in April 2013. A innovative feature brought about by Airtel is offering applications in local languages by collaborating with the VAS providers. Another interesting initiative is “Bharti Airtel Money” - a prepaid mobile wallet that allows users to make bill payments, book e-tickets, undertake online shopping and money transfers, etc. through their handsets – which has generated a healthy response in all the 15 countries it has been launched. This initiative has a great reach as it directly empowers rural customers financially. Going
