By IANS
New Delhi : Hailing the government’s move to introduce number portability in mobile telephony, Bharti Airtel chief Sunil Mittal said it would bolster the operator’s bottom line.
“If at all, it will increase margins as we will get high-value customers,” Sunil Mittal, Bharti’s chairman, told reporters on the sidelines of an event here Wednesday when asked about the government’s decision to introduce this, initially in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
Mittal said mobile number portability should be introduced across the country for the benefit of millions of consumers.
Communications and IT Minister A. Raja Monday said Monday mobile number portability, which allows a subscriber to shift from one operator to another without changing the number, would be introduced on a trial basis in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai by end 2008.
Bharti Airtel, the country’s largest telecom firm, added 2.03 million subscribers in October, taking its total mobile user base to 50.9 million and total market share to 31.88 percent, according to data released by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).