Another Ambani vs Mittal battle? A look into Airtel’s African empire

Many in India won’t know that Airtel is as familiar a brand in nearly half of Africa as in India. It is the second-biggest telecom company in the continent after South Africa’s MTN. Fourteen years ago, Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal took the brave decision to go to Africa and it has been a perilous journey for his company. Africa, where Mittal had expected to map India’s telecom growth story onto the continent, turned out to be little like India with its sparse population as well as political volatility which would discourage any pioneer telecom company .