Deal day for Bharti Airtel: To buy Warid Telecom Uganda; signs pact with Reliance Jio

MUMBAI: Bharti Airtel, the world's fourth largest mobile phone operator, said it had signed an agreement to buy rival Warid Telecom Uganda, in a move that will increase its customer base in Uganda by 60 per cent.


The deal with Warid, the No.3 mobile phone company in Uganda, will add 2.8 million customers to take its total user base in the country to 7.4 million, Bharti said in a statement on Tuesday. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Bharti, India's top mobile phone carrier and ranked No.2 in Uganda, in 2010 ventured into Africa at a time when growth in its home market had started showing signs of saturation. The company, which bought money-losing operations in 15 African countries for $9 billion, has yet to turn a profit there. It operates in 20 countries across Asia and Africa.

Deal with Reliance Jio

In a separate announcement made earlier in the day, Reliance Industries' telecom arm will use Bharti Airtel's submarine cable network to provide data connectivity across Asia Pacific.

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, which had earlier this month signed a Rs 1,200 crore deal to share Reliance Communication Ltd's fibre optic network in the country to roll out its 4G services, will hire capacity on Bharti's i2i cable network connecting India to Singapore.

"Bharti Airtel Ltd, a leading global telecom services provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd today announced that they have signed an Indefeasible Right to Use (IRU) Agreement, under which Bharti will provide Reliance Jio data capacity on its i2i submarine cable," a RIL statement said.

Bharti and Reliance Jio will continue to build on this "strategic framework" and consider other mutual areas of cooperation and development, they said.

The i2i cable's landing points are at Chennai in India and Tuas in Singapore. "Reliance Jio will utilise a dedicated fiber pair on i2i. The high speed link will enable Reliance Jio to extend its network and service reach to customers across Asia Pacific region," the statement said.

Bharti's global network runs across 225,000 km, covering 50 countries and 5 continents.

It includes ownership of i2i submarine cable system connecting Chennai to Singapore, consortium ownership of SMW4 submarine cable system connecting Chennai and Mumbai to Singapore and Europe, and new cable system investments like Asia America Gateway (AAG), India Middle East & Western Europe (IMEWE), Unity, EIG (Europe India Gateway) and East Africa Submarine System (EASSy).