Bharti Retail & Airtel

Bharti Retail, wholly owned subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises, today said it has started offering customers the facility to pay shopping bills through mobile phones.

The service is being provided in association with group firm Bharti Airtel and consumers can use the facility for purchases of up to Rs 5,000 at its ‘easyday’ stores.

Initially available to customers of easyday stores in Gurgaon, the facility will be launched in other key cities in India to cover all easyday and easyday Market stores in phased manner, as per the roll out of Airtel Money.

Airtel Money is a facility for financial transaction through mobile phones, which allows exchange cash up to Rs 5,000 for virtual money and stores it on their phone in the form of a prepaid account.

Airtel believe this method of payment underscores our commitment and promise of providing our customers an efficient and wholesome shopping experience at consistently everyday low prices.

Maruti drives into luxury sedan segment                     

India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki entered the luxury sedan segment with the launch of its premium sedan Kizashi.

The new car is the company's costliest model yet. The company, which has close to 50 per cent market share in the domestic passenger vehicle market, does not expect Kizashi to significantly boost sales in the short-term but expects demand to grow gradually for this segment.
With the Kizashi being critical for the company in building a strong brand in the fast growing ‘premium' sedan category, it has positioned the sedan very aggressively when compared with to the competition.
The sedan has a 2.4-litre petrol engine and will be offered with manual and automatic transmission options. The manual transmission model will cost Rs 16.5 lakh (ex-showroom) in New Delhi while the automatic version has been priced at Rs 17.5 lakh (ex-showroom).
In terms of size and features the Kizashi compares to A5 segment products like the Honda Accord (Rs 18.5 plus) and Skoda Superb (Rs 18.2 lakh plus), but the price positioning has stepped down to the to the A4 segment models like the Honda Civic (Rs 14.2 lakh for top-end) and Toyota Corolla (Rs 14.3 lakh for top). Lower pricing than competition can help the company make up for the lack of a ‘premium' brand image.
“The Kizashi is a major step forward for Maruti Suzuki”

Airtel:Bharti net income down

Bharti net income down:

Telecom major Bharti Airtel has reported a 41 per cent decline in its consolidated net income at Rs 1,303.3 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2010. This is mainly on account of huge rebranding cost and forex losses.

Net income during the corresponding quarter previous fiscal stood at Rs 2,194.9 crore.

Adverse currency movements in India and Africa resulting in restatement losses of Rs 151 crore and the one-time rebranding costs of Rs 340 crore are the main factors that dragged the net income down.

The impact of the additional spectrum charge (Rs 80 crore) as well as the higher interest outgo (Rs 471 crore) related to the acquisition on a year-on-year basis (if not factored in, then) it is a flat performance in net income.

Total revenue for the reported quarter, however, rose 51.14 per cent to Rs 15,756 crore from Rs 10,305.3 crore recorded in the third quarter ended December 31, 2009.

Bharti Airtel has re-paid $415 million of its net debt in the third quarter, a major portion of which was towards the repayment of loans for 3G and BWA licence.

Revenue from African operations rose 8.7 per cent quarter-on-quarter to $911 million. We have completed the integration of Zain acquisition.

Bharti Airtel had acquired Kuwait-based Zain Telecom’s African business for $10.7 billion (about Rs 48,000 crore).

The company’s telecom subscriber base stood at 199.1 million at the end of December 31, 2010, of which 42.1 million users were in Africa. The average revenue per user (ARPU) during the quarter fell to Rs 198 from Rs 202 in Q2 FY’11.

The company also registered a higher monthly churn (subscribers leaving and joining the network) rate of 7.8 per cent during the quarter.

Asked if the churn rate could go up further with the launch of mobile number portability (MNP), Mr Kapoor said, “With what we have seen in Haryana, the number of people going in for MNP is dismal. So, I don’t think it will make or break churn. 

MNP allows subscribers to switch operators, while retaining their mobile number.

On 3G, Bharti Airtel said it will roll out the service across the 13 circles where it holds licence by March 31, 2011.