India’s Bharti Airtel reportedly plans to ink a US$2bn loan with China Development Bank to fund the roll-out of 4G services.
Specifically, proceeds will be used to buy equipment from China’s ZTE and Huawei Technologies, Bloomberg TV India…
India’s Bharti Airtel reportedly plans to ink a US$2bn loan with China Development Bank to fund the roll-out of 4G services.
Specifically, proceeds will be used to buy equipment from China’s ZTE and Huawei Technologies, Bloomberg TV India reported.
A spokesperson for Airtel – the country’s largest mobile operator – declined to comment.
Airtel agreed to pay Rs293.1bn (US$4.6bn) for spectrum at the country’s March auction and is rolling out 4G services in major cities. It currently offers 4G in 17 cities.
The company reported mobile data revenues from Indian operations of Rs30.8bn (US$480m) for Q1 2015, up 59.1% year-on-year. It claimed to have 46.4 million data customers (20.5% of total customers) at the end of the quarter, representing a 30.3% increase year-on-year.
In March, Airtel announced a strategic partnership with China Mobile to grow 4G mobile data services. The companies plan to share relevant networks, product knowledge and best practices and devise a joint strategy to procure 4G devices such as smartphones.
