New Delhi, Mar 26: Bharti Enterprises' manufacturing arm Bharti Teletech today announced it has shipped out 20 millionth phone, and is now targeting the next 10 million phones by 2005. The company is also planning to shortly launch a Beetel model that would enable SMS facility on basic telephones, for which the test marketing is on with a few basic service providers, a company release said here.
Group managing director of Bharti Sunil Bharti Mittal said "while the first 10 million phones took the company 12 years to produce, the second 10 million phones came in just four years. We are hoping to quicken the pace of growth significantly to achieve the third 10 million mark by 2005."
He said the target was achievable as the Indian telephone market has been growing at 20 per cent and above consistently for the last five years. Also, Bharti Teletech has consolidated its position in all three segments of the domestic telephone market namely tender market comprising of purchases by BSNL and MTNL, open retail market and nascent private (basic) service providers market, it said.
The crossing of the 20 million phone mark makes the company the largest manufacturer of telephone instruments globally outside China.
Export is another window of opportunity that Bharti is focussing on for driving growth. Bureau Report