Airtel Africa joins Bridge Alliance
December 3rd, 2013 – Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), a leading global telecommunications services provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, today announced that it will join Bridge Alliance, a leading mobile alliance that is made up of 14 operators, serving over 500 million customers.
The 17 Airtel operations across Africa will join the alliance and gain access to the latest Bridge Alliance enterprise and roaming services. “It is important to be part of a strong alliance which can enable our enterprise customers to achieve full visibility of their regional mobile expenses for better check and control of corporate mobile spend. This gives our enterprise customers the opportunity to improve their mobile business operations at an international level” said Andre Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer at Airtel Africa. “Additionally, being part of Bridge Alliance enables the customers of Airtel Africa OpCos to enjoy forward-thinking roaming services extended to new countries in Asia and beyond.”
“We warmly welcome Airtel Africa OpCos to Bridge Alliance. This marks a new milestone for us as we enter the growing African market,” said Alessandro Adriani, Chief Executive Officer of Bridge Alliance. “Customers of Airtel Africa OpCos and of all Bridge Alliance members will enjoy geographically extended, simplified and competitive data roaming and voice services. Additionally, enterprise customers will achieve full control of their global mobile expenses and seamless mobile communications solutions.”
With a presence across 17 African countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia), Airtel is the largest telecom service provider across the continent in terms of geographical reach and had over 66 million customers at the end of quarter ended September 30, 2013. Globally, Airtel is ranked as the 4th largest mobile operator in terms of subscribers.
Bridge Alliance is a partnership of 14 leading mobile operators, namely, Airtel India, Airtel Bangladesh, AIS (Thailand), CSL (Hong Kong), CTM (Macau), Globe Telecom (Philippines), Maxis (Malaysia), MobiFone (Vietnam), SingTel Mobile (Singapore), Optus Mobile (Australia), SK Telecom (South Korea), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan), Telkomcel (Timor-Leste) and Telkomsel (Indonesia). Bridge Alliance members leverage their long lasting partnership to develop and launch innovative enterprise and roaming solutions.
About Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 Countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company’s product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 281 million customers across its operations at the end of October 2013. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com
About Bridge Alliance
Bridge Alliance is a partnership of 14 leading mobile operators, namely, Airtel (India and Bangladesh), AIS (Thailand), CSL (Hong Kong), CTM (Macau), Globe Telecom (Philippines), Maxis (Malaysia), MobiFone (Vietnam), SingTel Mobile (Singapore), Optus Mobile (Australia), SK Telecom (South Korea), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan), Telkomcel (Timor-Leste) and Telkomsel (Indonesia).
A combined customer base of 500 million and an extensive footprint allow members to leverage the collective strengths of the Alliance to develop and launch innovative enterprise and roaming solutions. Bridge Alliance operates through a Singapore-incorporated joint venture company, Bridge Mobile Pte Ltd. For more information, visit www.bridgealliance.com
