Mumbai, May 05: Bharti Teletech Ltd., the manufacturing subsidiary of the Bharti group, is targeting a sale of 5 million fixed-line telephone sets in 2004-05 (April-March), according to Rakesh Bharti Mittal, vice chairman and managing director. "We expect to close FY05 with overall sales of 5 million, up from 3.8 million last year," Mittal said. Mittal said the volumes are inclusive of retail sales, export sales, and sales to public sector undertakings Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam.
Mittal was speaking at a two-day national seminar on 'Globalisation Strategies for Indian Manufacturing', organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries. Mittal expects the company's retail sales for 2004-05 to rise 50% to 3 million telephones.
The company markets its phones under the Beetel brand. Recently, it entered into a strategic alliance with Thomson group-owned Atlinks, the world's biggest home and office telephony company.
As part of the alliance, Bharti Teletech will manufacture fixed-line telephones for global exports and also become the sole marketing and distribution company for Atlinks and will start selling GE branded telephones. The company exports fixed-line telephones to 25 countries across five continents across the globe. The company has a manufacturing plant at Ludhiana that manufactures phones for the global market. End Bureau Report