sunil bharti mittal

Mittal has also been working towards educating India through the Bharti Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of the Bharti Group. The Foundation has established over 254 schools in villages across India and offers free quality education with free books, uniform and mid day meals to poor children.

Transforming India Leader, NDTV Business Leader Awards .
GSMA Chairmans Award .
Padma Bhushan in 2007, from the President of India.
Asia Businessman of the Year, Fortune Magazine 2006.
Telecom Person of the Year, Voice & Data, 2006.
CEO of the year 2005, at the Frost and Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT awards 2006.
Best Asian Telecom CEO, Telecom Asia Awards 2005.
Best CEO, India, Institutional Investor, 2005.
Business Leader Of The Year, Economic Times, 2005.
Philanthropist of the Year Award 2010 at The Asian Awards.
INSEAD Business Leader Award 2011.

Sunil Bharti Mittal sensed that the business would remain small and therefore moved out of Ludhiana to Mumbai after selling the bicycle parts and yarn factories.In 1980, he along with his brothers Rakesh, Rajan started an Import Enterprise named Bharti Overseas Trading Company.

In 1981, he purchased importing licences from exporting companies in Punjab. He then imported thousands of Suzuki Motorss portable electric power generators from Japan.By 1982, he had started a full fledged business selling portable generators imported from Japan, which gave him a good platform to involve himself in marketing and advertising.

In 1983,the government banned the import of generators and granted the manufacturing rights to just 2 companies. Sunil Mittal was out of business overnight.Mittal says, In 1983, the government imposed a ban on the import of gensets. I was out of business overnight. Everything I was doing came to a screeching halt. I was in trouble. The question then was: what should I do next Then, opportunity came calling. While in Taiwan. I noticed the popularity of the push button phone something which India hadnt seen then. We were still using those rotary dials with no speed dials or redials. I sensed my chance and embraced the telecom business. I started marketing telephones, answering/fax machines under the brand name Beetel and the company picked up really fast.

Sunil Bharti Mittal started his first business in April 1976 at the age of 18, with a capital investment of 20,000 borrowed from his father. His first business was to make crankshafts for local bicycle manufacturers.Within three years he had set up two more plants, one that turned out yarn and the other stainless steel sheets.The initial days were very difficult and he earned very little from these ventures. It required a lot of traveling. In those days he travelled alongside his goods at the back of trucks. He was putting in 16 to 18 hours each day, but his business just didnt grow. It was the time to change track.

The Telecom business, I would say, was an accident, because the government banned the import of generators. One fine day, there was no business. All the business that I had developed was gone. My beat was Japan, Korea, Taiwan. I went back into those areas looking for a new product which I found in Taiwan at a trade fair where I saw push button telephones. I brought Indias first telephone set replacing the rotary phone, he explains.In 1984, he started assembling portable push button phones in India replacing the old bulky Rotary Disc phones which were widely used in India. He had a tie up with Siemens AG and thus Bharti Telecom Ltd or (BTL) was born. BTL entered into a technical tie up with Siemens AG of Germany for manufacture of electronic push button phones. By the early 1990s, Mittal was making fax machines, cordless phones and other telecom gear.His Beetel brand of phones revolutionised the telephone market in India replacing once and for all the rotary disc phones.

As luck refused to part away Mittals lucky break came in 1992, when the government began issuing licenses for mobile phone services for the first time and he clinched a deal with the French telecom group Vivendi for the Delhi cellular circle.He was one of the first Indian entrepreneurs to identify the mobile telecom business as a major growth area. His plans were finally approved by the Government in 1994. and he launched services in Delhi in 1995, when Bharti Cellular Limited (BCL) was formed to offer cellular services under the brand name AirTel.

In 1995, the Bharti Cellular Limited (BCL) was established and the brand Airtel was launched. The rest as they say is history. Within a few years Bharti became the first telecom company to cross the 2 million mobile subscriber mark. The company is also instrumental in bringing down the high STD/ISD, cellular rates in the country by rolling the countries first private national as well as international long distance service under the brand name IndiaOne.In 1996, cellular service was extended to Himachal Pradesh. In 1999, Bharti Enterprises acquired control of JT Holdings, and extended cellular operations to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. In 2000, Bharti acquired control of Skycell Communications, in Chennai. In 2001, the company acquired control of Spice Cell in Calcutta. Bharti Enterprises went public in 2002, and the company was listed on Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India. In 2003, the cellular phone operations were rebranded under the single Airtel brand. In 2004, Bharti acquired control of Hexacom and entered Rajasthan. In 2005, Bharti extended its network to Andaman and Nicobar. This expansion allowed it to offer voice services all across India. In 2009, Airtel launched its first international mobile network in Sri Lanka. In 2010, Airtel acquired the African operations of the Kuwait based Zain Telecom. In March 2012,Airtel launched a mobile operation in Rwanda.

Today Airtel is the worlds third largest mobile telecommunications company with over 261 million subscribers across 20 countries as of August 2012. It is the largest cellular service provider in India, with 186.9 million subscribers at the end of August 2012. Airtel is the third largest in country mobile operator by subscriber base, behind China Mobile and China Unicom.Forbes magazine ranks him among Asias self made billionaires with a whopping net worth at some USD 11 billion. Mittal resides in South Delhi with his wife Nyna and have three children.

When Sunil Mittal embarks on a major project he stops eating meat. In the early 1990s, when Mittal was bidding on his first mobile phone project, he vowed to be a vegetarian until he could talk on my own phone. Three years later, Mittal resumed eating meat.He is superstitious about the number 23, as he was born on the 23rd.